The Red Dress – Stroud Book Festival

The Red Dress: Conversations in Stitch is the much-anticipated book documenting and celebrating The Red Dress global collaborative embroidery project and its coming to Stroud for the Stroud Book Festival for one day only, Thursday 6 November 2025 at St Laurence: Centre for Peace & the Arts, The Shambles, Stroud GL5 1JL

For Stroud Book Festival we are planning timed viewings of the dress, an embroidery workshop with Nikki Green from new Stroud haberdashery The Fold and a talk and panel discussion about the book and about The Red Dress project, stitching and its capacity for wellbeing, with artist Kirstie Macleod, publisher Katy Bevan and editor Emma Bovill.

10.30am 11.45am 1.00pm 2.15pm timed entry viewing of the dress for 60 mins

2.30 –4.00pm Embroidery workshop with Nikki Green of The Fold @thefoldstroud

4.30–5.30 pm Panel discussion about The Red Dress with Kirstie Macleod, Emma Bovill the editor and Katy Bevan from Quickthorn

Viewing only £5, workshop £25, talk £12 (workshop and talk tickets include access to view the dress)

Tickets available from www.quickthornbooks.com

The Red Dress: Conversations in Stitch celebrates the award-winning garment conceived by artist Kirstie Macleod and created by 380 individuals in 51 countries over 14 years from 2009–2023. The dress weaves together the diverse stories of its contributors across borders and boundaries uniting artisans and audiences in the shared community of embroidery.

Composed of 87 panels of burgundy silk dupion (approx. 25m of fabric) embellished with an estimated 1-1.5 billion stitches using a wide variety of traditional techniques, The Red Dress was created by 141 commissioned artisans and 239 willing embroiderers at exhibitions and events.

Embroidery Workshop

Join Nikki Green, proprietor of The Fold, Stroud’s new haberdashery shop, for an exploration of stitches inspired by The Red Dress.

Tickets for the talk and workshop include access to view The Red Dress.

 

Useful Links

https://reddressembroidery.com/ https://reddressembroidery.com/EXHIBITIONS

Projects inspired by The Red Dress (including the Calico Garment Initiative)

https://reddressembroidery.com/INSPIRED-BY-THE-RED-DRESS

Videos about the project https://reddressembroidery.com/MEDIA @thereddress_embroidery