Stunning Red Dress Made by 370 Artisans in 50 Countries Over 13 Years Tells Women’s Stories（附中文）

Over 13 years, an intricate project conceived by a British artist has come together with help from 370 artisans in 50 different countries around the world. The project, The Red Dress, is a stunning floor-length gown constructed out of 84 pieces of burgundy silk dupion, honoring women’s stories across cultures and celebrating the power of togetherness.

The dress was the brainchild of Kirstie Macleod, 41, a textile artist who lives with her partner and three children in Somerset, England. Born into a family of skilled stitchers, knitters, and makers, Macleod traveled and lived in many countries across the world as a child since her father worked in energy. At the age of nine, she learned to embroider from an Indian woman while living in Nigeria.

Macleod later earned a Bachelor of Arts in Textile Design followed by a Master of Arts in Visual Language & Performance before beginning her career as a fine artist while living in London.

‘Space to Dream’

“The Red Dress began in 2009,” Macleod told The Epoch Times. “I was given the opportunity to bring a new piece of work to Art Dubai. I was given funding [from the British Council] before I had decided on a piece, which is the opposite way around to usual … so it just allowed me this amazing space to dream.”

Macleod came up with the idea of The Red Dress while scribbling on the back of a napkin in a café. The piece, she dreamed, could unite people from around the world and celebrate identity, while also providing a platform for voices to be shared and heard.

“I was so saddened and I guess, at times, despairing with the state of the world,” Macleod said, “and I wanted to create a piece of work that had no boundaries, no prejudice, no hierarchies, that would simply bring people together.”

She bought a large quantity of burgundy silk dupion from Paris, France—which she believes came from India—for the body of the dress and settled on a design that she felt looked “feminine and empowered.” Wanting the dress to appear timeless, she balanced a corseted waist and expansive skirt with a plunging neckline, stiff collar, and military-style detailing.

“I wanted the dress to look really powerful and strong,” she said.

Next came the task of enlisting contributors. Macleod, who once tutored at the Royal School of Needlework in London, drew on her network of contacts to get the ball rolling, plus she contacted her parents’ connections and friends from their time spent living abroad.

Before long, she received requests from individuals and charities wanting to join the project.

139 commissioned embroiderers were paid for their work and now continue to receive a portion of all ongoing exhibition fees, merchandise, and the opportunity to sell their work through the Red Dress Etsy shop.

While the rest of the embroidery was added by willing audiences at various exhibitions and events.

According to the project website, the embroiderers include female refugees from Palestine, Syria, and Ukraine; women seeking asylum in the UK from Iran, Iraq, China, Nigeria, and Namibia; survivors of war in Kosovo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Rwanda, and DR Congo; impoverished women in South Africa, Mexico, and Egypt; individuals in Kenya, Japan, Turkey, Jamaica, Sweden, Peru, Czech Republic, Dubai, Afghanistan, Australia, Argentina, Switzerland, Canada, Tobago, Vietnam, Estonia, USA, Russia, Pakistan, Wales, Colombia, and England; students from Montenegro, Brazil, Malta, Singapore, Eritrea, Norway, Poland, Finland, Ireland, Romania, and Hong Kong; as well as upmarket embroidery studios in India and Saudi Arabia.

The dress has been worked on by 363 women and 7 men.

‘The Energy of the Fabric’

Macleod told The Epoch Times: “The most memorable parts of the journey have been when I received panels back in the post. The first time I got to see the work, and felt gratitude … it was a humbling feeling, the humility of the trust that the artisan had given me with their story.

“When you hold the fabric in your hands, you can feel the energy of the fabric, but also how many stitches they’ve created, how much of their time, their energy, their dreaming, their vision … it’s all in that fabric. To hold that in your hands is incredible.”

Besides their lovingly crafted handiwork, the painful stories of the women artisans began to weigh heavily on Macleod, who eventually saw a therapist to help process the experience of making the dress.

She explained: “There is a huge amount of trauma and abuse, war, and incredibly painful situations and stories stitched into the dress, alongside joyful, happy, uplifting things. But it has been difficult for me to integrate and process some of the stories … because I’m working with it so deeply and intimately every day.”

Back in 2009, Macleod spent a week straight constructing the structure of the dress. Since then, she has dedicated two or three full days of work every few years, liaising with artisans across the world in between. However, she often finds herself doing “little bits and bobs” to mend loose buttons or seams, and has grown used to the extended time frame of the dress’s construction with respect for its expanding story.

When Macleod began the project she didn’t know if the project would work for a year or ten years, however even after a decade she knew it wasn’t complete and thus continued it for three more years.

Macleod said: “People often say, ‘How could you carry on for so long? How could you be so dedicated to something?’ For me … how could I not be? It just made perfect sense to me that this piece would be made.”

Embroidery by Allthreads Collective Australia, 2018, photo by Sophia Schorr Kon (Courtesy of Sophia Schorr-kon via Kirstie Macleod)

Meeting the Makers

For the dress’ very first presentation in Dubai, Macleod had to work very quickly. So she enlisted the help of her mentor, Gail Faulkner, and seamstress Silvio De Gregorio to prepare the garment and find a way to conceal the plunging neckline to conform with Sharia law. She has since made additional changes to the bodice and skirt to allow for a better exhibition of the panels and, since 2019, embroidery has been added directly to the dress to fill the remaining spaces.

However, the entire project was not without difficulties. Funding the 13-year project, and finding a work-life balance, have been the biggest challenges for Macleod.

For the first year, Macleod was funded by the British Council, however, for the next eight years she had to fund the project by herself as public interest waned and it proved very hard to get recognition and exhibitions during that time.

“I self-funded the project for many years, and that was at a time when I was a single mom on benefits so it was very, very difficult,” she said. “There were some really generous donations from individuals who just really loved the project and wanted to help, that was fantastic, but then I was given an Arts Council award grant in 2020 and that changed everything.”

The funding enabled her to get a website and a film made. It also helped with getting translators since sometimes communicating wasn’t as easy.

Macleod was also working on the dress most of the time, including through mornings and evenings and around her family time.

“Now I’m quite rigorous about just working in my studio, unless I absolutely have to do something quickly,” she said. “But when I’m at home, I’m dedicated to my kids.”

Today, she is touring with The Red Dress to share its message and meet some of its contributors. Thus far she has met various makers in Mexico, embroiderer Amanda Wright in Wales, and artisans Rudy and Fatima Lilly in Kosovo.

In the next few years, she plans to reconnect with all the artisans and meet them in person to show them the finished dress.

Macleod has only had to field occasional concerns about her project. She explained, “I have had three messages from people over the years who have been upset by the dress, particularly because of my position as a middle-class white woman. There have been criticisms of it being a colonialist piece of work … in every one of those situations, once the people who had written to me actually understood the work, then everything fully resolved.”

However mostly the public reaction to the dress has been great. It has provoked feelings of reverence; tears, smiles, hugs, conversation, and most of all, connection. “When I do events, often it will turn into a really big sharing experience for people,” Macleod said.

“It’s about what’s possible when we come together. It’s about love, it’s about support, companionship, authenticity. It’s about equality and unity,” she said. “If the dress can, even just for a moment, share what is possible when we come together, when we can support one another … there’s some hope.”

“[The dress] has been described as a beacon of peace and various other things,” she said. “I hope that it I hope that it can help people feel comfortable and feel a connection.”

The Red Dress in Speaking Out in collaboration with War Childhood Museum Sarajevo. The exhibition was dedicated to and co-produced by women survivors of conflict-related sexual violence and children born of war. (Courtesy of Kirstie Macleod)

BY LOUISE CHAMBERS

Courtesy of Sophia Schorr-kon and Kirstie Macleod

驚豔紅裙製作的故事：50國370工匠歷時13年

13年來，一個由英國藝術家構思的複雜項目得到了來自世界各地50個國家的370名工匠的幫助。這件名為「紅裙」的令人驚歎的拖地長裙，由84塊紫紅色絲綢拼接而成，致敬不同文化背景下的女性故事，頌揚團結的力量。

這條裙子是41歲的克斯蒂‧麥克勞德（Kirstie Macleod）的創意，她是一位紡織藝術家，與她的伴侶和三個孩子生活在英國的薩默塞特（Somerset）。麥克勞德出生於一個由熟練的縫紉工、編織工和製造商組成的家庭。由於麥克勞德的父親從事能源工作，她從小就在世界各地旅行和生活。九歲時，她在尼日利亞生活，向一位印度婦女學習了刺繡。

麥克勞德後來獲得了紡織設計文學學士學位，隨後又獲得了視覺語言與表演藝術碩士學位，之後在倫敦開始了她的美術家生涯。

夢想的空間

麥克勞德告訴《大紀元時報》，「製作紅裙始於2009年，我有機會為迪拜藝術展帶來一件新作品。在我決定創作一件作品之前，英國文化協會為我提供了資金，這與通常的做法正好相反，所以讓我有了這個令人驚歎的夢想空間。」

麥克勞德在一家咖啡館的餐巾紙背面塗鴉時，想出了「紅裙」的點子。她夢想著，這個作品可以將世界各地的人們團結起來，慶祝自己的身分，同時也為分享和傾聽聲音提供了一個平台。

麥克勞德透露說，「我有時非常難過，我對世界的現狀感到絕望，我想創作一件沒有界限、沒有偏見、沒有等級的作品，它能夠把人們聚集在一起。」

她從法國巴黎購買了大量的酒紅色絲絨，她相信這些絲絨來自印度，用於製作裙子，並選擇了一種她覺得「女人味和力量都十足」的設計。為了讓這件紅裙顯得永恆，她平衡了束腰和寬大的裙擺，有一個垂墜的領口、硬領和軍事風格的細節設計。

她表示，「我希望這條裙子看起來非常有力和強大。」

接下來是從世界各地徵集人手的任務。曾經在倫敦王家針織品學校任教的麥克勞德，利用她的人脈來啟動這個項目，此外，她還聯繫了她父母的關係網和他們在國外生活時的朋友。

不久，她就收到了來自個人和慈善機構希望加入這個項目的請求。此後，部分刺繡者從「紅裙」的巡迴展覽中獲得了部分利潤；但大多數成員是志願者。

根據項目網站，刺繡者包括來自巴勒斯坦、敘利亞和烏克蘭的女性難民；來自伊朗、伊拉克、中國、尼日利亞和納米比亞在英國尋求庇護的婦女；有科索沃、波黑、盧旺達和剛果民主共和國的戰爭倖存者；南非、墨西哥和埃及的貧困婦女；還有來自肯尼亞、日本、土耳其、牙買加、瑞典、秘魯、捷克共和國、迪拜、阿富汗、澳大利亞、阿根廷、瑞士、加拿大、多巴哥、越南、愛沙尼亞、美國、俄羅斯、巴基斯坦、威爾士、哥倫比亞和英格蘭的個人；來自黑山、巴西、馬耳他、新加坡、厄立特里亞、挪威、波蘭、芬蘭、愛爾蘭、羅馬尼亞和香港的學生；以及印度和沙特阿拉伯的高檔刺繡工作室。

這條裙子已經由363名女性和7名男性加工完成。

織物的能量

麥克勞德告訴《大紀元時報》，「這段旅程中最令人難忘的部分是當我收到郵寄回來的鑲飾時，第一次看到這些裝飾作品，讓我感到非常感激，這是一種謙卑的感覺，是刺繡者用他們的故事給予我的信任。當你把鑲飾拿在手裡時，你能感覺到鑲飾的能量，也能感受到他們縫了多少針，他們花了多少時間、精力、夢想和願景。這一切都在每一塊鑲飾裡。可以體驗到拿在手裡不可思議的分量。」

克斯蒂‧麥克勞德於2021年縫製紅群。[蘇菲亞‧斯科爾‧孔（Sophia Scorr Kon）拍攝，克斯蒂‧麥克勞德提供]
除了她們精心製作的手工作品，女刺繡者們的痛苦經歷開始對麥克勞德產生了很大的影響，她最終去看了一位治療師，以幫助完成紅裙的製作。
她解釋道，「這條裙子裡隱含有大量的創傷、虐待和戰爭，以及令人難以置信的痛苦處境和故事，同時還有快樂、幸福、令人振奮的事情。但對我來說，我很難拼湊和處理其中的一些故事，因為我每天都如此深入地與之密切的合作。」

早在2009年，麥克勞德就花了整整一週的時間來設計這件裙子的結構。從那時起，她每隔幾年就要花上兩三天的時間，與世界各地的刺繡者保持聯繫。然而，她經常發現自己在做「瑣碎工作」來修補鬆散的紐扣或接縫，並且已經習慣於延長這件禮服的製作時間，因為其背後的故事在不斷擴大。

當麥克勞德開始這個項目時，她不知道這條裙裝要做一年還是十年，然而即使在十年後，她也知道這條紅裙還沒有完成，因此又繼續做了三年。

麥克勞德分享道，「人們經常問我，『你怎麼能堅持這麼長時間？你怎麼能如此專注於一件事？』我怎麼可能不這樣做呢？對我來說，這件作品的製作是非常有意義的。」

與各類製作人和手藝人會面

為了在迪拜首次展示這條裙子，麥克勞德必須趕製。因此，她尋求她的導師蓋爾‧福克納（Gail Faulkner）和女裁縫西爾維奧‧德‧格雷戈里奧（Silvio De Gregorio）的幫助。並找到一種方法來隱藏下垂的領口，以符合伊斯蘭教法，此後，她對胸衣和裙子做了額外的改動，以便更好地展示鑲飾，自2019年起，刺繡被直接添加到禮服上，以填補剩餘的空間。

然而，整個項目並非都是一帆風順的。資助這項為期13年的項目，並找到工作與生活的平衡，是麥克勞德面臨的最大挑戰。

第一年，麥克勞德得到了英國文化協會的資助，然而，在接下來的八年裡，隨著公眾興趣的減弱，她不得不獨自資助這個項目，而且在這段時間裡，很難獲得認可和展覽。

麥克勞德透露說，「我多年來一直在為這個項目提供資金，那時我還是一個靠救濟金生活的單親媽媽，所以非常、非常困難。有些人真的很慷慨，他們真的很喜歡這個項目，想幫助我，真是太棒了。後來我在2020年獲得了藝術委員會獎，這改變了一切。」

這筆資金使麥克勞德能夠建立一個網站和製作一部電影。這也有助於得到翻譯人員，因為有時溝通並不那麼容易。

麥克勞德的大部分時間都在製作這件紅裙，包括早上和晚上以及利用家庭時間。

她說，「現在在工作室工作時會嚴格要求自己。除非我必須迅速做一些事情。但當我在家時，我會全心全意地為孩子們服務。

威爾士的製作人阿曼達‧賴特（Amanda Wright），2010年。（克斯蒂‧麥克勞德提供）
如今，她帶著「紅裙」參加巡迴展，分享紅裙背後的信息，並會見一些參與者。到目前為止，她已經在墨西哥會見了各類製作人，在威爾士會見了刺繡師阿曼達‧賴特（Amanda Wright），在科索沃會見了手藝人魯迪（Rudy）和法蒂瑪‧莉莉（Fatima Lilly）。

在接下來的幾年裡，她計劃與所有的手藝人重新聯繫，並親自與他們見面，向他們展示成品禮服。

麥克勞德只需要偶爾對她的項目表示關注。她解釋道，「這些年來，我收到了三條反饋，他們對這件衣服感到不安，特別是因為我是一名中產階級白人女性。有人批評這件紅裙是殖民主義作品，在每一種情況下，給我寫信的人一旦真正理解了這件作品，那麼一切都會得到徹底解決的。」

然而，大多數公眾對這件衣服的反應都很好。它激起了人們的崇敬之情；淚水、微笑、擁抱、交談，最重要的是，聯繫。麥克勞德說，「當我舉辦活動時，它往往會成為人們真正重要的分享體驗。」
麥克勞德分享說，「這是關乎當我們走到一起時，我們能完成怎樣的作品。這是關乎愛、支持、陪伴和真實性，是關乎平等和團結。如果這件禮服能夠，哪怕只是一瞬間，分享我們走到一起時完成的作品，我們能夠相互支持時，就有一絲希望。」

她表示，「這條紅裙被描述為和平和其它各種事物的燈塔。我希望它能幫助人們感到舒適，感受到一種聯繫。」