As part of a special Singapore International Festival of the Arts (SIFA) collaboration, we invite the artists and creatives involved in four of the presenting works to share more about the behind-the-scenes process, what they hope a festival like SIFA can help to shed more light on, and more reflections from their time as artists. 

With luxury’s increasing coverage on the human touch of craftsmanship, it’s important to remember that stories of their ateliers and artisans are told through a lens. The may have willingly taken on stewardship roles for their chosen trade and its culture, but what we know of the struggles that come with upholding what goes against the natural flow of time is seldom revealed alongside the romance of their prettily packaged cause. It’s also crucial to remember the crafts used in fashion design often have roots outside our fashion capitals, which is why French-Vietnamese Caroline Guiela Nguyen’s multilingual (French, Tamil and English) work LACRIMA, is an important work to watch for those who wish to understand fashion on a deeper level.

Here, Men’s Folio speaks to the director, writer and theatre maker to learn more about why she decided to create this piece, how she put it together, and why at the end, we all learn that the human touch will always offer more than a finished product; craft has the power to tell stories that will touch you in infinitely more ways than meets the eye.

Hi Caroline! Could you share with us where you got inspiration to do a work like this?
The inspiration for LACRIMA stemmed from an initial desire to explore how secrecy can itself be a condition of violence. At first, I wanted to focus on women, drawing on various accounts of the violence they had endured — violence often concealed beneath different forms of secrecy, be it social, political or familial. But I hadn’t yet found what could link these stories together. In my work, I always need a structuring element, an anchor point capable of uniting disparate narratives, and this element was missing.

One day, I came across an anecdote about Lady Diana Spencer’s dress. I discovered that its creation had been shrouded in absolute secrecy: two dresses had been made to prevent any leaks, the fabric scraps were mixed together to leave no identifiable traces… Everything had been designed to preserve this secret. At that moment, I had a hunch that haute couture could be the lens through which to approach my project. This hunch was confirmed very quickly: I discovered a world where secrecy is present at every stage of the process. It became the starting point for the show.

I learned that you like to delve into stories about decentralisation — given your diverse background — and was pleasantly surprised to read from the synopsis that light is finally being shed on the craftsmen of the fashion industry with more focus on the beauty of the people than their craft, especially told not from the houses they work for. What were some new things that you learned about the fashion industry that you did not know of before?
This project has allowed me to discover realities I was completely unaware of. For example, I didn’t know that the world’s greatest embroidery artisans were, for the most part, Indian embroiderers, and that much of the embroidery we admire in haute couture is based on their expertise.

I was also deeply fascinated by everything I learnt about Alençon lace. In particular, I didn’t realise that, for a long time, there were deaf lace-makers. In Alençon, nuns trained and supported young deaf girls, who then went on to create this extremely intricate lace. During the war, these women were even called upon, as their deafness made them less vulnerable to the din of the bombings: they could continue to work with a kind of imperturbability in the face of the sound of bombs. This story made a deep impression on me.

What research did you do to prepare for this?
To prepare for this project, I undertook very hands-on research, going directly to the places and people involved. I first travelled to India, where I visited embroidery workshops of all sizes, ranging from small independent workshops to large-scale operations working for brands such as Dior. This gave me an insider’s understanding of the working conditions, the techniques, and the excellence of this craftsmanship. I also spent a great deal of time in Alençon, where I met the museum director, as well as a retired lace-maker who played a significant role in gaining recognition for this craft. These exchanges were essential for understanding the transmission, memory and fragility of these practices.

Finally, I met many people working in the fashion industry: workshop forewomen in particular — a central figure, who appears in the show through a character played by an actress. These accounts informed the writing and anchored the project in very concrete realities.

Did making this work change the way you think, see and feel about the industry? Why?
Yes, this project has changed something within me — but more than that, it has allowed me to discover realities I was previously unaware of. Coming from a creative background, I have always paid very close attention to the act of creating. At the same time, my family history, deeply linked to the issue of colonialism, kept me at a distance from the notion of heritage for a long time. Living in France, I often felt that this heritage, in a way, excluded my parents’ history. What deeply moved me, particularly through my discovery of Alençon lace, was realising that these women who continue to practise this craft are not merely preserving a technique: they are keeping a living presence alive. It is gestures, hands, and a memory that depend entirely on being passed on. Being confronted with the very real possibility of this craft disappearing transformed my perspective. It allowed me to reconnect, in a much more intimate and profound way, with the very notion of heritage — no longer as something static or exclusionary, but as something fragile and living, which depends entirely on those who carry it forward.

What challenges did you encounter while making LACRIMA? How did you overcome them?
The main challenge was figuring out how to convey, on stage, a beauty that is usually played out on a millimetre-by-millimetre scale. We were faced with a contradiction: creating a show for an audience that is necessarily far removed from the artisans’ hands, even though everything hinges on the extreme precision of their movements. Video was obviously a key solution, allowing us to bring the audience’s gaze closer and give them access to details that are invisible from a distance. But another question very quickly arose: how could we make the movements on stage appear authentic, when most of the performers could neither sew nor make lace? Every role had to be credible; the audience had to believe that each performer truly had ‘gold in their hands’. To achieve this, I was fortunate to be working in a national theatre with a sewing workshop of the highest standards. The craftspeople taught us the movements, the postures, and a way of embodying the work, which allowed us to approach—without ever fully replicating—the skills of the women and men to whom the show pays tribute.

I read that you also cast real people as your actors, even working with a film casting director. For instance, getting actual members from the wardrobe team at Théâtre National de Strasbourg to step on stage. How does this enrich your works and did it do so in ways you did not foresee?
I have always worked with both professional and non-professional actors, initially for very practical reasons. For example, for LACRIMA, I needed an elderly woman who spoke both French and Tamil — and I couldn’t find anyone matching that profile amongst the professional actresses I met. This forced me to look to the wider community. But this choice goes far beyond mere necessity. It lies at the heart of my relationship with theatre. I seek to establish a very strong bond with the audience: to make them believe that what is happening before their eyes is actually taking place, here and now. Calling upon performers whose life stories resonate directly with the roles they embody helps to intensify this belief. When we say to ourselves: ‘of course this woman has been making lace all her life’, then something shifts in our perception.

Finally, it is also a profoundly political act. I want the stage to be imbued with the real diversity of the world, so that bodies, languages and stories that are often absent from the stage can find their place there. Working with non-professionals also makes this representation possible.

What’s been the most interesting casting story so far? Have you discovered any hidden naturals through doing so?
I can share two anecdotes with you. The first concerns the character of Dina. In the play, she plays Julien’s mother — and in real life, she is actually the mother of the actor on stage. This ties in directly with the question of belief, which is central to me. When Dina defends her son on stage, you sense that something transcends fiction: what is being performed is imbued with their real-life bond. It is nevertheless very important for me to clarify that the reality of the fiction has absolutely nothing to do with the lives Dina and her son lead. The situations depicted in no way reflect their personal history.

I really enjoy blurring this boundary between the real and the fake, between what is acted out and what actually exists, and observing how this affects the audience’s perception. The second anecdote concerns the character of Nanny, a lacemaker. Nanny had already appeared in my show Fraternité, but in a very different register—much more expansive, almost irascible. At the time of casting, however, I had a hunch that she could embody a young lacemaker—a role the polar opposite of what I knew of her. And she is magnificent in it. She embodies a woman capable of remaining silent for days on end — for we must remember that lace-makers work in a deep, prolonged silence that shapes their relationship with the world. What moves me is seeing just how well this silence suits her, as if it were revealing a side of her that I had never seen before.

It always moves me deeply: it is not only the performers who bring fiction to life, but sometimes fiction that reveals the performers.

I believe theatre is an art form that is powerful because of its visceral nature. It makes you confront truths you would or could not else reach, either willingly or unwillingly. How has theatre enriched your life, and in turn, how has life enhanced your understanding of theatre and its importance?
I believe that theatre has profoundly enriched my life ever since I accepted that life — my life — could enter into my work and guide it. When I started out, the landscape of my childhood was not present on stage. It was, however, populated by people from exile — my father, an Algerian exile, my mother, a Vietnamese exile — but these stories, these bodies, these languages were absent from the theatre I saw. In that sense, I experienced the theatrical act as something very detached from reality: of great beauty, but disconnected from who I was.

I believe I truly began to make theatre, and to find my own way of expressing myself, from the moment I accepted that I would no longer seek to speak of what was ‘right’ or ‘necessary’. Instead, I accepted that who I am, where I come from, and the people who have shaped my story could be present on stage, without having to justify themselves. This involves very concrete things. For example, accepting that accents exist on stage — not as a flaw to be corrected, but as a richness, a musicality, a way of inhabiting the language. Surprisingly, this has been a way for me to reconcile myself with theatre, but also to reconcile myself with my own life, and to mend certain parts of it.

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