Written by Willard Morgan, conceived and directed by Steve Fagin, the performance is a four-act extravaganza that surgically cuts and pastes from dance, fashion, performance, film, art, and Musica Cubana to explore the main character’s damaged relationship to clothing. Vestiphobia confronts us with the contradictory nature of our clothing, understood here not only as a necessity but also as a luxury, a shield, and even a weapon. 

The four acts of the presentation dealt with the pretentions of the contemporary art world, exhibiting absurdist as well as documentary contemplations on fashion, a kinetic urban fashion mosh-pit of a runway gone amok, to a primal atavistic re-birthing of the dandy joined by his glamorous Cuban dominatrix doppelganger. To finish, Francis del Rio’s epilogue revisited a song about people’s habit to borrow each other’s clothes, and a shirt he missed dearly. 

The team was interested in developing Vestiphobia’s performance within a location related to the concept of mass production. As a former factory, the Fábrica de Arte Cubano (FAC) presented the ideal venue to contextualize such a show; with its large open space and its connection with a local and international audience interested in music, visual arts, and theatre.