Lekazia Turner, embroiderer from Jamaica, 2022
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CALICO Dress NO. 2


Southern Vermont Arts Center, Manchester, Vermont, USA / 2023
Members of the local community added their stories to Calico Dress No. 2 ahead of and during The Red Dress exhibition at the Southern Vermont Arts Center, Manchester, Vermont.

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The Southern Vermont Arts Center (SVAC) was the first arts organisation in the United States to exhibit The Red Dress as part of the garment's travels across the country 2023-2024 also taking in The Frick Pittsburgh and the Fuller Craft Museum.

Curated by Alison Crites, the SVAC exhibition was three years in the planning and explored the evolution of The Red Dress project including the development of the Calico Garment Initiative and launch of Calico Dress No. 2, Vermont's own collaborative piece.

After an open call, more than 15 people worked on Calico Dress No. 2 prior to the exhibition adding motifs representing individual identities alongside cultural and personal influences. Profiles of the contributors and interpretation materials explaining their designs were included in the exhibition and are also detailed in an online catalogue. 

SVAC then invited members of the community and visitors to add their stories to Calico Dress No. 2 through an embroidery workshop led by Kirstie and further engagement activities during The Red Dress exhibition, resulting in a total of 58 contributions. Calico Dress No. 2 was later displayed with dresses No. 3 and 4 at the Fuller Craft Museum in the Spring of 2024 and later added to the permanent collection of the SVAC.

https://www.svac.org/class/red-dress/





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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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