Sophie King is a British contemporary artist who creates embroidered feminist dating advice for heterosexual couples. Her embroidered messages centre on a woman’s experience in a heterosexual relationship. The messages are meant to empower women, since thanks to a predominantly patriarchal society, heterosexual relationships are prone to power imbalances in favour of men. King’s embroideries remind women not to lose themselves in relationships, to always prioritize their own goals and well-being despite a society that tells them to put men’s needs first. This is why her work is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of Gender Equality.
King’s choice to work with embroidery is a nod to the recent wave of feminist artists who are reclaiming the medium. For centuries, embroidery was synonymous with the domestic and delicate image of womanhood. Traditionally, embroidery has been a task relegated to obedient housewives, a safe hobby for “good girls” to do at home in their spare time. However, contemporary women artists such as Judy Chicago, Orly Cogan and now Sophie King have reclaimed it as a medium that empowers women. Using it to portray subject matters that give women the ability to choose their own path in life, free from the constraints of patriarchal gender roles.
One of the first pieces King was renowned for is YOU’RE NOT A BAD BOY. In the piece, she used simple stitching to embroider the sentence “You’re not a bad boy, you’re just a bad person” with black thread on a white corset. During these early days, her simple stitched pieces were spreading like wildfire across the internet. So much so that in 2017, Vogue Magazine called them “the wearable versions of #MeToo,” referring to the global anti-sexual assault and anti-harassment movement that had its roots in Hollywood and social media.
King soon decided to experiment with her work. She had her sights on embroidering on non-traditional mediums and found that flowers would make interesting canvases. Here, she’s alluding to how men would frequently gift flowers to women they are seeing. However, much like bouquets of flowers eventually wilt and die, King’s pieces remind women that, in dating, infatuation is just a fleeting emotion. This is exemplified in her piece THEY LOVE ME, THEY LOVE ME NOT, where she has embroidered the sentence “They love me, they love me not, either way, I’m enough,” onto the petals of a sunflower. The tongue-in-cheek piece reminds women that their self-worth is not determined by whether or not they are in a relationship.
In certain other pieces, such as I GAVE YOU LOVE, which spells out “I gave you love, you gave me trust issues,” King is using a first-person point of view to seemingly share her own personal dating experiences. Pieces like this make her more relatable, showing that her embroidered dating advice comes from reliable first-hand experiences. As a woman navigating the contemporary dating scene herself, King’s work becomes a trustworthy feminist survival guide. Her work puts women first in a world that often places them last.
Find out more about Sophie King’s embroideries and their other initiatives by checking their Instagram on @kingsophiesworld.