THE DRESS

by EJay Sims
a large white cloth SHIRTWAIST DRESS
approximately 15’ long.

This object was a film projection prop for a performance
art series called, “The Dress,” that I put together
and performed in Chicago and various other
locations circa 1984-5.
Because of its monumental size I came up with
the idea of replicating, on a large scale,
the historical practice I grew up with ….
“hanging your laundry out to dry.”

You used to see clothes hanging out to dry
from windows or on clothes lines
strung between fire escapes
in large immigrant neighborhoods

I always loved the sight of skirts,
shirts and sheets blowing in the wind.

THE DRESS was mounted on a wire hanger to billow with the wind
on the fire escape of 306 Bowery @ 1st Street, NYC —
in March of 2020 in honor of

Women’s History Month,
and in memory of the
TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FACTORY FIRE
MARCH 25, 1911.

I also dedicated it to my grandmother, Rose Kruger,
a seamstress who immigrated to New York
from Hungary with my great grandmother in 1913,
and helped raise the family by stitching, mending and later,
designing one-of-a-kind clothes.

It went through my mind that she could have very easily
ended up in a place like the Triangle Factory
during the time they lived in the Lower East Side.

The installation was lit up at night from duskuntil 10pm.The movements of the skirt
ishing even gently above the light
eerily made it seem as if the dress really
might be on fire.