'It's always about turning something dark and traumatic into something beautiful' - dressed. interview

By Gabi Spiro, Arts Online Editor

Epigram chats with Josie Dale-Jones -- artistic director of ThisEgg and co-creator of the award-winning show dressed. -- to chat costume, collaboration and companionship.

dressed. is the brave and inspiring show which took Edinburgh Fringe by storm last summer. The four women (Josie, Olivia Norris, Nobahar Mahdavi & Lydia Higginson) are currently on their UK tour, gracing Bristol in May.

Lidia Crisafulli

This piece follows the true story of Lydia’s recovery after being stripped at gun point, and the support of her childhood friends. A costume-maker, she set out to remake her entire wardrobe, and now only wears her own clothes.

Four costumes are a focal point of the play. Made by Lydia during her recovery, they were the inspiration for dressed. ‘They were the four archetypes that she found herself trying to be. Sometimes protective – a warrior being strong and pretending you’re ok. A showgirl similarly putting on a façade, or the clown making jokes.

‘We were interested in how we use these costumes and archetypes in life to help us get through different situations but also how sometimes those are the specific things you need for a friend – and sometimes that’s really brilliant and sometimes it’s too hard to be that one thing.’

dressed. perfectly balances light and dark, comedy and seriousness, and despite its sensitive subject matter, leaves the audience with a gut-wrenching sense of joy and hope. I wonder if this was a conscious decision. ‘For Lydia, it’s always about creativity and its always about turning something dark and traumatic into something beautiful. I think the stories that we get around similar topics are always quite negative and there’s never a story of recovery.’ Instead, dressed. focuses on friendship, support and solidarity.

Lidia Crisafulli

The play seems to ardently focused on empowering female friendships that I wonder what Josie thinks about these. But she surprises me. ‘A friendship is a friendship, and I’m really lucky to have similar friendships with a lot of my male friends. I witness similar friendship and support between the males in my group.’

‘I think [female friendships] are much more instinctual and the four of us in particular are very instinctual towards each other. You don’t need to say that something’s up, even if it’s something really small. Michelle Obama talks about female friendships being small kindnesses being swapped back and forth over and over again and yes that’s 100% what I think we do.’

Lidia Crisafulli

dressed. combines choreography, live sewing, comedy and original music in a symbolic act of collaboration. Each of the four women play to their strengths. ‘It happened quite naturally in that we all do different things. We knew that we would need more than one thing to tell the story. Text was quite a hard thing to work with in the show – there’s a lot you can’t say with words, and a lot you can’t say without movement or music. Song and dance are a really useful way to talk about the things that are just too raw to say.’

dressed. runs at Tobacco Factory Theatre from 21 – 23 May. Tickets available here.

(Featured image credits: Lidia Crisafulli)

Have you seen dressed.? Let us know in the comments below or on social media.

Facebook // Epigram Arts // Twitter