The Red Dress Embroidery

The Red Dress is a collaborative embroidery project stitched by 380 embroiderers and artists, including vulnerable women, from 51 countries. It was commissioned by the British Arts Council and designed to to form connections through the art of embroidery. You can find out more about the Red Dress here on Instagram.

The day I visited the exhibition at the Museum of Brisbane, it was well attended, with viewers vying for a front row spot to take photos. Fortunately, my daughter, who is taller than I am, was able to get a better view of the whole dress, front and back.

The silk satin panels of the dress included not only surface embroidery, but also beadwork, needle painting, applique, and metal thread embroidery, among several other forms of needlework. 

I was intrigued by the metres and metres of scalloped and embroidered edging attached to the bottom of the dress.

The panel embroidered by Australian stitchers in Brisbane was easy to identify. It included Uluru, kangaroos, gum flowers and leaves, a bright sun and ocean waves along the Great Barrier Reef.

Although the Red Dress has now left Brisbane, it has been travelling to exhibitions around the world. You may be able to see it one day in your home country.