At the press conference he gave yesterday flanked by his producer Andrew Starke, Peter Strickland, the director of In Fabric, revealed that his film had been inspired by the out-of-time, otherwordly atmosphere of the department stores he frequented as a youth. It features an extraordinary red dress that turns out to be possessed and proves to have murderous consequences once it’s out of the store, and when asked why there was so much violence in his film, he countered by saying that it was a genre film with a killer dress. “It’s the whole nature of the film. It’s about the terrifying randomness of death".

Both producer and director were surprised but impressed about the fact that a film of this type could be allowed to compete in the Official Selection of a major festival, and also stressed how they had struggled to balance logic and mystery so that the audience didn’t get lost. “The only illogical element is the killer dress; the rest is grounded in reality.” Strickland closed by confessing that he was permanently unsatisfied about his work. “Everything I do is flawed and imperfect – that’s why I keep on going to my next film".