Lekazia Turner, embroiderer from Jamaica, 2022
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CALICO dress NO. 1


National Waterfront Museum, Swansea, Wales / 2022 – ongoing
Dress launched and initial embroidery circle led by Kirstie and community textile artist Menna Buss at the National Waterfront Museum, Swansea, Wales, in 2022 with ongoing activities planned.

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The first 'sister dress' to The Red Dress was unveiled on International Women’s Day in March 2022 as part of an exhibition of The Red Dress at the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea, Wales, in conjunction with the Swansea Women’s Asylum and Refugee Support Group (The Women’s Group).

The Women’s Group, alongside a handful of exhibition visitors, contributed the final motifs to The Red Dress before its official completion in a moving and uplifting embroidery event. The launch of the Calico Dress No. 1 – known as the Calico Dress Cymru or ‘Gwisg Calico Cymru’ would mark a new beginning in the wider project.

The garment aims to gather women’s voices in the heart of communities at workshops and other occasions. Originally commissioned by the National Waterfront Museum, textile artist and arts educator Menna Buss is now steering the Calico Dress Cymru through Spring and Summer 2025 with a dedicated space within the museum, once housing a steam locomotive!

Menna plans to give the Calico Dress Cymru a reimagined Welsh Folk costume silhouette while keeping it recognisably related to The Red Dress and its sister dresses. It will be added to during open-to-the-public embroidery sessions and through specific engagement activities with community groups from Swansea and beyond.

www.instagram.com/calicodress_cymru/
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OUR SUPPORTERS

A huge thank you to all who have given their time, energy, enthusiasm, advice, experience and support to The Red Dress project over the years.

In addition to the organisations below, funding has been gratefully received from a number of private donations and via three crowdfunding campaigns in 2020, 2022 and 2024.
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Nothing expresses more eloquently the feelings I suspect we share about the importance of embroidery in our lives, and the support we derive from the friendships made through stitch, than Kirstie Macleod’s Red Dress.
Caroline Zoob, Editor of Stitchers Journal 2022
This beautiful object highlights the common ground between individuals, bringing together different identities and uniting people, we are honoured to contribute to it.
Tiny Kox, PACE President at the Council of Europe, Strasbourg 2023
The Red Dress has become an icon of the international textile world.
Suzanne Smith, Textile Society 2022
The Red Dress in its final incarnation, a magnificent, regal robe, symbolises 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 is in some respects similar to Mail Art, the populist artistic movement centred on sending small scale works through the postal service. It initially developed out of the Fluxus movement in the 1950s and 60s – but on a larger scale – the journey of the work is part of its identity, process, and in fact function. A signifier of the temporal and physical nature of the process inherent in the creation of the piece. The surface of the dress layered with embroidery slowly transforming into a specific topographical map – completely particular to the work’s journey – and reflective of the burgeoning sculptural landscape of the object.
Paul Black, Artlyst 2015
It’s her (Kirstie’s) red silk Dupion bodice and voluminous skirt created for the Red Dress that fully demonstrates her commitment to embroidery and the immense respect for the international community of makers.
Denna Jones. Embroidery Magazine 2010
...the fact that they could embroider what they wanted and that it is appreciated has given them some strength, some confidence that I didn’t feel so strongly before they created the embroideries.
Nicole Esselan, Founder of Kisany Africa, supporting artisans in DR CONGO and RWANDA who created embroidery on the Red Dress in 2018
This is both an extraordinary work of collective art and profound and eloquent social commentary. It is also an example of how potent the Attire language is capable of becoming.
Attires Mind (Fashion Blogger) 2020
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