Stitching as sacrament

"The Red Dress" at Fuller Craft Museum celebrates the handiwork of more than 400 embroiderers around the world

Kirstie Macleod, “The Red Dress.” 15 lbs., silk dupion, thread, and beads. At the Fuller Craft Museum, Photo Caitlin Burton, courtesy Fuller Craft Museum.

In 2009, British textile artist Kirstie Macleod launched “The Red Dress,” a project that would take 14 years to complete. Macleod shipped panels of burgundy silk to nearly 400 embroiderers around the world, inviting each to tell their own story in stitches. “The Red Dress” is now on view at Fuller Craft Museum. Its makers include survivors of war in Rwanda and Kosovo, refugees from Palestine, Syria, and Ukraine, and impoverished women from Egypt, South Africa, and Mexico finding they can make a living with needle and thread.

“Animated with the creative, personal work of hundreds of hands,” I write in my Globe review, “‘The Red Dress’ is both regal and democratic.” It’s humbling just to be in its presence. The gown is more than a symbol. It’s testimony from (mostly) women around the world who have, for one reason of circumstance or another, been made invisible. “Here we are,” it seems to say. “This is our light, our color, our artistry, our hope.”

An embroidery circle in Aguacatenango, Chiapas, Mexico. The dress is worn by Vanessa Aguilar Juarez. Photo Kirstie Macleod.