Dressed Up’ unveils ‘reDRESSed’ initiative

New York, NY (Sonique
Solutions) – The organizer behind ‘Dressed Up’,
the specialty dress shoppe coming soon to Newark’s Teachers
Village, has unveiled the first philanthropic effort by the retail
business which is called ‘reDRESSed’.

This is an advocacy program
dedicated to providing dresses (and other clothing) to domestic abuse
survivors.

The revelation came at a recent
intimate presentation surrounding the art exhibition, ‘Stitches of
Strength’ at the Paul Robeson Galleries, Express Newark, New
Jersey.

The Stitches of Strength project/
artistic display is a large, multi-coloured quilt created by
students, staff & faculty of Rutgers University – Newark and
melded together by a local seamstress. It touches on the topics of
domestic violence, sexual assault, emotional abuse and sheds light on
the issues of power and control.

At the event, Dressed Up/reDRESSED
mastermind Diane ‘Fury’ Wiltshire, who is a domestic abuse
survivor herself, spoke on this initiative to have her business
partner with a domestic abuse women’s shelter in order to dress
survivors who are rebuilding their lives after escaping circumstances
of abuse and re-entering the workforce.

Fury shared her own experiences of
fear, shame, isolation, manipulation and being controlled and
underscored the importance of showing sensitivity and empathy to
persons in these vulnerable instances.

She stated, “The fabric of our lives
is stitched together and I am thankful for my journey as it brought
me to a place where I can now be a support system and assist other
women on their path to redemption via the reDressed program”.

She added, “After I got out of my
situation, one of the things I did was to ‘dress up’ myself in
order to make my outside as beautiful as possible while I was healing
my internal self.”

Joining Fury at this event was Taylor
Miller from the Office of Violence Prevention and Victim

Assistance. Taylor who is also a
Confidential Sexual Violence Advocate for the County of Middlesex
shared on the difficulties victims face in leaving these situations
of abuse and offered advice on how to positively support persons in
these scenarios.

The audience which comprised of
community leaders, social services professionals and university
students was engaged in the presentations, shared their own
experiences and was eager to learn more on the topic and about the
reDRESSED program.

As
excitement builds for the imminent launch of Dressed Up, Fury remains
as equally focussed on this humanitarian endeavour as she is on her
retail enterprise.

For
additional info please contact Dressed Up via email:
fury@dressedup.shop

Keep up to date on the launch of
‘Dressed Up’ via Instagram: www.instagram.com/dress_ed_up/

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IMAGES:

The photo captions are as follows:

1) Diane ‘Fury’ Wiltshire and Taylor Miller present at the event held at the Paul Robeson Galleries, Newark, New Jersey.2) The reDRESSED program is dedicated to providing dresses (and other clothing) to domestic abuse survivors.3) The audience comprised of community leaders, social services professionals and university students.4) Attendees shared their own experiences and were eager to learn more on the topic and about the reDRESSED program.
5) The colorful tshirt material and denim squares within the Stiches Of Strength display represent sexual violence and intimate partner violence in various forms.