Serving Looks: The Poetics of Clothing
Delve into the fabric of what we wear and why to serve fire new looks in your poetry.
* This course will take place on the video-conferencing platform ZOOM *
‘A person relies on their clothing to look presentable, so does a buddha’s statue of its gilded surface.’
Let’s reject clothing as a form of frivolous vanity, but embrace it as a necessary act of self-deification. Join multidisciplinary creative and poet Christy Ku for an online poetry workshop delving into the fabric of what we wear and why.
In the face of laws policing what people can wear and multi-billion dollar industries pushing lightspeed fast fashion on us, how do we curate our sense of self via clothing? How can we see through societal fears projected onto our clothes and threaded into our psyche, and how can we weave joy back into our everyday wardrobe?
We’ll consider ourselves as amalgamations of hand-me-downs and explore our personal lineages of influences on our choice of clothing. The workshop will invite you to discover the poetics of clothing and glamour magic, empower the daily ritual of dressing and write into our mirrored reflections.
We’ll delve into texts by writers such as Kim Addonizio, Troy Cabida, Franny Choi, Truman Capote, and F.Scott Fitzgerald, as well visual and performance artists including Ilona Royce Smithkin and Dita Von Teese.
Attendees are encouraged to rethink self-idolation, to use poetry as a means to enchant and archive in order to resist disposable fashion. We’ll be guided through gentle generative exercises with space for sharing work and writings (and outfits) throughout the workshop. Join us for a joyous, and encouraging celebratory evening of writing, dreaming and self-celebration!
Dress code: anything – glad rags optional.
1 x 2.5-hour session, running 6.30–9pm (BST), on 9 April 2025. This course will take place on the video-conferencing platform ZOOM.
To apply for a concession rate, please send relevant documentation showing your eligibility for one of our concessions to [email protected]. Conditions of eligibility are detailed here. More information about how our Video Courses work can be found on the Video Courses page. If you have any questions or wish to be added to the waiting list of a sold-out course, please email [email protected].
Image credit: Micky White
About Christy Ku 
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Christy Ku is a London based poet, writer, actor, and workshop facilitator. She is a James Berry Poetry Prize 2024 commended poet. She has worked with organisations including the BBC, Sky Arts, Apples & Snakes, Science Museum, and the Barbican on projects such as poetry films, spoken word tracks, and theatre shows. Christy is an alumna of the Barbican Young Poets, New Earth Actors Academy, National Youth Theatre, Southbank New Poets Collective, and Royal Court Theatre Playwriting Group. She is the founder of BESEA Poets, a platform for British based East and South-East Asian poets.
Christy has been published with Macmillan Children’s Books, Pan Macmillan, Own It!, Magma Poetry, the Barbican, Potluck Zine, Spoonfed, The Dark Horse Magazine, and more. She was once rejected from having a poem baked onto 200 loaves of bread. Christy is currently seeking a publisher for her debut poetry pamphlet.
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