2025 - Dangerous Coats Poem

I have revisited my 2020 'Blanket Coat', because I became inspired by Sharon Owen's poem, 'Dangerous Coats'.

I embroidered the poem onto black fabric, then slip stitched it to the back of the blanket coat. It is now my 'Dangerous Coat made of pockets and sedition'.

Each pocket now contains 2 hankies, which share the embroidered story of a woman, who dared to "spread sedition" to make her world see the unfairness, the unkindness and the inequality of a government's regime.

The hanky has history

Coming out of a medieval aristocratic well-bred background, subject to sumptuary laws, the hank eventually became a common item. From the late 18th century, white handkerchiefs were waved, generally by women, to demonstrate approval at public events, like political rallies. My black hankies can be interpreted in an inverse fashion.

Sedition: Conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.

As I worked on the wonderfully brave Sophie Scholl's story of sedition, I noted my mother was born the same year.