Meg Cowell The Future

"The dresses are alive; we can almost hear their heartbeat. But they are unoccupied - where we expect to see a delicately arching neck, an outstretched arm, rosebud lips there is instead only nothing, only that endless black void. It is as though the gowns have consumed their human hosts and somehow grown stronger, and even more exquisite, for it. They are beautiful and lustrous, but these are predatory creatures; pastel-coloured night hunters." Excerpt from essay by Eric Henshall, 2020