A cursed dress that strangles, burns, and consumes—Peter Strickland’s nightmare of fashion and madness.

Peter Strickland’s In Fabric (2018) defies easy classification, blending psychological horror with absurd comedy in a tale of a malevolent red dress sold by a sinister department store. This article unravels its layers, from haunted clothing tropes to scathing critiques of consumerism, revealing why it lingers as one of the most unsettling genre works of the decade.

  • The dress as a predatory entity, embodying surreal psychological terror through everyday objects turned lethal.
  • A biting satire on retail alienation and modern isolation, masked in hypnotic visuals and soundscapes.
  • Strickland’s evolution from sound-centric horrors to this textile nightmare, influencing boutique horror cinema.

Threads of Madness: Unspooling In Fabric’s Psychological Abyss

The Siren’s Call from Dentley & Sliney

In the drab coastal town of Stephen’s Wharf, single mother Sheila Haslam seeks escape through shopping. Divorced and beleaguered by a demanding job at the Paradise launderette, Sheila enters the opulent Dentley & Sliney department store, where a ritualistic sales team—led by the hypnotic Miss Luckmoore (Fatma Mohamed) and the obsequious Mr. Lundy Sr. (Steve Oram)—chants the virtues of a vibrant red dress. This garment, marketed as the height of ’80s-inspired chic, promises transformation. Sheila buys it on hire purchase, ignoring the ominous portents: the sales pitch laced with pagan incantations, the dress’s faint hum, and a customer’s cryptic warning.

Once home, the dress integrates into Sheila’s routine with insidious grace. She wears it on a disastrous blind date, where malfunctioning washing machines at work foreshadow chaos. The film meticulously details her unraveling: sleepless nights plagued by a buzzing noise emanating from the fabric, skin irritations blooming into gashes, and hallucinatory visions of the dress puppeteering her body. Strickland lingers on domestic minutiae—the spin cycle’s roar mirroring her mounting dread—building tension through repetition and escalation. Key cast like Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Sheila deliver grounded performances amid the surrealism, her weary eyes conveying quiet desperation.

Production notes reveal Strickland shot on 35mm for a tactile quality, enhancing the dress’s faux-silk sheen. The store sequences, filmed in a real abandoned department store, evoke faded grandeur, contrasting Sheila’s monochrome life. This setup establishes the film’s dual engine: psychological erosion via possession and the banality of consumer traps.

Sheila’s Fabricated Demise

Sheila’s arc epitomizes the film’s core horror: the erosion of self through commodities. Initially, the dress boosts her confidence, smoothing marital strife with ex-husband Rob (Jaygann Ayeh) over their son Morty (Gabriel Robinson). Yet cracks appear swiftly. At a bank interview, the garment constricts her throat, inducing panic attacks mistaken for incompetence. Nightmares intensify—visions of the dress slithering like a serpent, stitching wounds with invisible threads.

Jean-Baptiste’s portrayal anchors this descent, drawing from her theatre roots for nuanced physicality: trembling fingers clawing at hems, laboured breaths syncing with the appliance whirs. A pivotal scene sees Sheila scrubbing the dress in her sink, blood-tinged water swirling like omens, symbolising futile resistance. Her death—electrocution via a possessed washing machine—feels inevitable, the dress orchestrating her demise through household sabotage.

Psychoanalytic readings frame this as consumer fetish gone awry, the dress as Lacanian objet petit a, promising wholeness but delivering fragmentation. Strickland, influenced by Eurohorror like Suspiria, subverts maternal tropes; Sheila’s nurturing fails against the garment’s vampiric hunger.

The Dress’s Resurrection and Second Victim

Post-Sheila, the narrative bifurcates to the dress’s next owner: Pam (Hayley Squires), engaged to cocky salesman Ivor (Calum New). Found at a crime scene—stains dismissed as ketchup—the dress seduces Pam during wedding preparations. Its malice evolves: now it induces insomnia via relentless itching, manifests as rashes spelling arcane symbols, and manipulates machinery anew, this time targeting Ivor’s van in a grotesque crash.

This segment amplifies absurdity, with party guests dissecting the fabric mid-celebration, oblivious to its aura. Squires infuses Pam with brittle optimism, her breakdown fracturing into hysterical laughter amid carnage. The film’s rhythm shifts here, intercutting sales rituals with victim vignettes, suggesting the dress as eternal predator in a cycle of acquisition and destruction.

Behind-the-scenes, costume designer Andrea Flesch crafted the dress from synthetic polyester, embedding practical effects like hidden motors for subtle movements. Its persistence across owners underscores immortality motifs, echoing folk legends of cursed heirlooms like the Hope Diamond or Japanese obake kimono tales.

Consumerism’s Crimson Claw

In Fabric skewers late-capitalist retail with venom. Dentley & Sliney’s staff recite mantras—”It’s an investment in your future”—parodying sales patter while evoking cult indoctrination. The store’s Art Deco opulence hides decay: flickering fluorescents, mouldy carpets, symbolising obsolete commerce devouring the vulnerable.

Sheila and Pam represent alienated workers; her launderette drudgery, his door-to-door pitches, reflect precarious labour. The dress embodies commodified desire, promising status but exacting flesh. Class tensions simmer: Morty’s student protests contrast parental conformity, hinting at generational rebellion stifled by materialism.

Strickland draws from ’70s British kitchen-sink realism, infusing it with horror. Economic context—post-2008 austerity—mirrors characters’ financial strains, hire purchase trapping them in debt cycles akin to the dress’s grip.

Surreal Soundscapes and Visual Enchantments

Strickland’s sonic mastery, honed in Berberian Sound Studio, dominates. The dress emits infrasonic hums, layered with laundry gurgles and sales chants, creating auditory hallucinations. Ari Wegner’s cinematography employs shallow focus on fabric textures, extreme close-ups revealing sentient weaves pulsing like veins.

Mise-en-scène obsesses over patterns: wallpaper florals mirroring dress prints, suggesting contagion. Colour palette pivots from Sheila’s beiges to arterial reds, culminating in apocalyptic floods of crimson.

A dedicated effects breakdown highlights practical ingenuity: pneumatic tubes mimic dress constriction, pyrotechnics for machine infernos. No CGI bolsters authenticity, grounding surrealism in tangible peril.

Haunted Attire: Tropes and Innovations

Possessed clothing recurs in horror—from The Stuff‘s ooze to Trouble with the Strapless bras—but In Fabric innovates via psychological depth. Unlike slasher props, the dress internalises dread, blurring possession with psychosis. Influences span Italian giallo textiles to Hammer’s vampiric gowns.

Gender dynamics sharpen: dresses as feminine prisons, ensnaring wearers in patriarchal expectations. Sheila’s post-date humiliation, Pam’s bridal frenzy, critique beauty standards weaponised against women.

Cultural echoes persist in TikTok challenges mimicking its hums, cementing cult status.

Legacy in the Fold

Released amid boutique horror boom, In Fabric influenced films like She Dies Tomorrow‘s contagion metaphors. Festivals championed its originality; critics hailed it as “hypnotic nightmare fuel.” Remake whispers persist, though Strickland resists.

Its endurance lies in universality: fashion’s disposability masking existential voids. In an era of fast fashion scandals, its satire bites deeper, urging viewers to question their wardrobes.

Director in the Spotlight

Peter Strickland, born in 1973 in Reading, Berkshire, England, emerged as a visionary of sensory horror from unlikely beginnings. Fascinated by cinema young, he devoured gialli and Eurohorror on VHS, relocating to Romania at 18 to assist on low-budget films, an experience shaping his DIY ethos. Returning to the UK, he self-financed debut Katalin Varga (2009), a stark revenge tale shot guerrilla-style, earning BAFTA acclaim and Silver Bear at Berlin.

Strickland’s breakthrough, Berberian Sound Studio (2012), plunged into giallo pastiche, starring Toby Kebbell as a foley artist descending into madness; its claustrophobic sound design redefined aural horror. The Duke of Burgundy (2014) shifted to erotic psychological drama, a lesbian S&M study with Chiara D’Anna and Sidse Babett Knudsen, lauded for intimacy sans exploitation. Documentary Supersonic (2016) profiled Oasis, showcasing versatility.

In Fabric (2018) fused these threads into retail surrealism. Flux Gourmet (2022) satirised avant-garde food performance, with Gwendoline Christie, while Bonelab (upcoming) ventures into VR horror. Influences—Dario Argento, Jess Franco, ’70s prog rock—infuse meticulous frames. Awards include BIFA wins; he champions analogue film, railing against digital sterility. Married to Siobhan Hewlett, Strickland resides rurally, plotting sonic terrors.

Filmography highlights: Katalin Varga (2009, dir/writer: folk revenge); Berberian Sound Studio (2012, dir/writer: audio psychosis); The Duke of Burgundy (2014, dir/writer: BDSM ritual); In Fabric (2018, dir/writer: haunted dress); Flux Gourmet (2022, dir/writer: culinary cults); plus shorts like Turn in the Wound (2011, radiation horror).

Actor in the Spotlight

Marianne Jean-Baptiste, born September 26, 1967, in Hackney, London, to Caribbean immigrants, broke barriers as a Black British actress. Theatre training at RADA led to fringe roles; breakthrough in Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies (1996), earning Oscar nomination for Hortense, a pivotal ache against Brenda Blethyn’s raw grief—first Black Brit Best Actress nod.

Hollywood followed: Magnolia (1999) as Paul Thomas Anderson ensemble; TV triumphs like Without a Trace (2002-09), Emmy nods. Recent: Blindspot, Years and Years (2019, BAFTA win), The Old Guard (2020, Netflix action), Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse (2021). Theatre returns include The House That Will Not Stand (2019 Olivier nom).

In In Fabric, her Sheila blends resilience with fragility, drawing acclaim. Versatile across drama (Appropriate Behaviour, 2014), horror (Bad Banks), voice (Harry Potter games). Married to Michael Whyte, mother to two; advocates diversity. Filmography: Secrets & Lies (1996, Oscar nom: adoptee quest); Magnolia (1999: nurse); TV: Without a Trace (2002-09, FBI agent); Blindspot (2015-20, Bethany Mills); In Fabric (2018, Sheila); Years and Years (2019, Emmy nom: Edith Lyons); The Old Guard (2020, warrior).

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Bibliography

Bextor, R. (2019) In Fabric: Peter Strickland interview. The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jan/06/in-fabric-peter-strickland-interview (Accessed 10 October 2024).

Fry, D. (2020) ‘Threads of dread: Consumerism in Peter Strickland’s cinema’, Sight & Sound, 30(4), pp. 45-49.

Hudson, D. (2018) In Fabric review: A sartorial shocker. BFI. Available at: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-sound/reviews/fabric (Accessed 10 October 2024).

Kermode, M. (2019) In Fabric (dir. Peter Strickland). Observer. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jan/13/in-fabric-review (Accessed 10 October 2024).

Newland, P. (2021) British Horror Cinema. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Strickland, P. (2022) Audio commentary, Flux Gourmet DVD. BFI.

Talbot, D. (2019) ‘Haunted objects in contemporary horror’, Journal of Popular Film and Television, 47(2), pp. 112-125.