SDA Book Club: The Red Dress review by Vivien Zepf
October 3, 2025
The Red Dress: Conversations in Stitch, by Kirstie Macleod and voices from the embroidery project
In 2022, fifteen female survivors of conflict-related sexual violence gathered together at the War Childhood Museum in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. They were meeting with Kirstie Macleod, creator and facilitator of The Red Dress, a scarlet silk dupion dress embellished with stitching by embroiderers from around the world. The group participants were encouraged to share their stories, to be heard. Many had faced social stigmas when speaking of their trauma. Working on The Red Dress, however, would become a vehicle for regaining some measure of personal agency of their experiences amid community. That day this group of women created a collaborative motif which was added to the dress. Their combined truths became part of the visual dialogue of The Red Dress.
From Victim to Victory, 2022. Created by 15 female survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, supported by the War Childhood Museum in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Photo credit: Kirstie Macleod. Image Courtesy of Quickthorn Publishing.
The Red Dress was initially inspired by Macleod’s visit as a young adult to Karnataka, India. There, she circumvented the language barrier with the area’s Lambani women “through a mutual love of embroidery”. The potency of that experience—the ability to meaningfully connect via stitch—resurfaced in 2009 as Macleod’s personal art performance. At each installation, Macleod sat confined in a Perspex (plexiglass) box, embroidering on a floor length red gown she was wearing. For many years this incarnation of The Red Dress was her way of protesting how many women’s voices are silenced around the world, to express her anger about many issues facing women, including the lack of equality. However, as years passed, Macleod realized that the dress’s true potential lay in adding the voices and stitched stories from those who regularly battled vulnerability and lack of empowerment. “So, I removed myself and the cube, letting the dress stand tall and strong by itself.” Thus The Red Dress transformed over fourteen years, from a personal artwork into one with input from 380 individuals in 51 countries, with approximately one billion stitches. This artistic, collaborative and emotionally evocative journey is the focus of The Red Dress: Conversations in Stitch.
Each Red Dress embroiderer received the same brief “to create an embroidery that in some way articulates an element of your own identity and the culture you are from.” [1] As a result, the gown is a cacophony of imagery, technique and thread. Sometimes the public stitched on the dress at events or graduate students picked up needle and thread. Macleod sent panels or large segments of the dress to 141 commissioned artists to stitch upon, which were then returned to England to be incorporated into the ever evolving structure dress (until its completion in 2023). In the book, we are introduced to several different embroiderers, and to elements of their life and creative experience. The personal stories of many of the participants are sobering, but the book is neither maudlin nor disheartening. Instead, it is filled with themes of hope, resilience, recovery and unity. The gorgeous photos of stitching and proud, smiling faces further support the messages of peace, self-expression, dialogue and community.
The Red Dress, 2022. Model: Sharmin Sadia, Kurdistan. Photo credit: Mark Pickthall. Image courtesy of Quickthorn Publishing.
This book is one facet of Macleod’s vision of engagement with the dress and the cathartic power of stitch. I strongly encourage you to visit the project’s website which, among other things, introduces more embroiderers than could (understandably) be accommodated in the book. You can also use a 3D feature to see the dress embroidery in detail.
Kirstie Macleod and The Red Dress with Royal School of Needlework Embroiderers, 2022. Photo credit: Emma Doggart. Image courtesy of Quickthorn Publishing.
While she steps aside to allow us to hear other people’s voices, Macleod must be applauded for her fortitude and insight in bringing this remarkable artwork into being. The Red Dress Project, and by extension, this book, are important contributions to the conversation of what it means to be a woman, to be heard, and to the healing power of art. It is a model of how one person can bring great meaning to individuals and society through art. Personally, I will be lingering with the women’s stories, reflecting deeply on the significant challenges they have faced and overcome. I hope I have an opportunity to stand before The Red Dress some day and become immersed in its stories.
“The Red Dress in its final incarnation, a magnificent, regal robe, symbolizes the empowerment of women through the creation of something beautiful, something which began with bowed heads and tired fingers but also with faith and joy, an openness and willingness to be a part of something which they could not see at that time but in which they could believe had meaning and worth connecting with other women around the world.” –Lady Alison Myners, Chair of the Royal Academy Trust, 2020
The Red Dress being embroidered by refugee women from Ukraine, Traces of Sisterhood exhibition, Galeria Salon Akademii, Warsaw, Poland, 2022. Photo credit: Kirstie Macleod. Image courtesy of Quickthorn Books.
[1] Online artist talk with WOVEN Innovation in Textiles across Kirklees, July 24, 2025.
–Vivien Zepf
- Publisher: Quickthorn (buy it here)
- Date: May 205
- ISBN: 978-1068321511
If you’ve read this book, leave a comment and let us know what you think!
Do you have a recommendation for a recent fiber-related book you think should be included in SDA’s Book Club? Email SDA’s Managing Editor, Lauren Sinner, to let her know!
