LACRIMA at the Barbican: The Hidden Seams of Couture
A wedding dress is often celebrated for its grandeur — the silk, the lace, the shimmer that dazzles for a few fleeting minutes. Yet rarely do we see the hidden stitches, the anonymous labour, or the private lives poured into its making. In LACRIMA, French director and playwright Caroline Guiela Nguyen pulls that hidden world into view. Showing at the Barbican from 25–27 September 2025, this ambitious, multilingual production asks audiences to look not at the gown itself, but at the hands that made it.
Scene from LACRIMA. Photo Credit: Jean Louis Fernandez.
Nguyen, founder of the company Les Hommes Approximatifs and Artistic Director of Théâtre National de Strasbourg, has long worked to spotlight hidden lives. Her acclaimed productions draw audiences into overlooked histories and communities. With LACRIMA, she begins with the secrecy surrounding Princess Diana’s dress — a premise at once fairy tale and reality. On the eve of her wedding, the Princess of England commissions her dress from a prestigious Parisian couture house. On stage, the Paris studio is mirrored through split-screen projection with an Alençon lace workshop and the embroidery ateliers of Mumbai.
Scene from LACRIMA. Photo Credit: Jean Louis Fernandez.
The story unfolds: For eight months, some thirty artisans dedicate themselves to the creation of the dress. Sworn to secrecy, they pour their knowledge into a gown destined to be admired worldwide, though their names will never be spoken. Woven into this tapestry of labour are intimate portraits: Marion, the overworked head seamstress of Maison Beliana, juggling the weight of her craft with the tough questions of a troubled daughter; Thérèse, an Alençon lacemaker, forced to confront a complicated family past; and Abdul, a master embroiderer in Mumbai, who fastens 1,000 roses onto duchesse satin even as his eyesight begins to fail. As these men and women edge toward self-erasure in their pursuit of perfection, LACRIMA explores the fragile space between what threatens to destroy us and what gives our lives meaning.
Scene from LACRIMA. Photo Credit: Jean Louis Fernandez.
For textile lovers, LACRIMA is a rare homage to techniques that are themselves treasures. Alençon lace — known as the “Queen of lace” — demands extraordinary patience, its delicate motifs painstakingly raised by hand. In Mumbai, bead-workers and embroiderers coax shimmer from thread and glass, continuing traditions shaped by both Mughal refinement and colonial trade. Together with Parisian seamstresses, they build a garment that is not only an emblem of wealth but also a vessel of human skill and fragility.
Detail of beaded dress fabric used within a scene from LACRIMA. Photo Credit: Jean Louis Fernandez.
Performed in French, Tamil, English, and sign language, with subtitles in English and Spanish, LACRIMA is both hyperrealist and poetic. It shows how a single dress becomes a prism through which to see the world: threads connecting continents, communities, and histories. At the Barbican this September, audiences are invited to look beyond couture’s shimmer and glimpse the lives that lie within its fabric.
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Further Information:
LACRIMA is showing at the Barbican, London, from Thursday 25 to Saturday 27 September, 2025.
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Image Credits:
Lead: Scene from LACRIMA. Photo Credit: Jean Louis Fernandez.
All other images as credited in photo captions.