The Mollie’s Masquerade was a year-long community arts and heritage project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Arts Council England. Heads Bodies Legs Theatre Company produced a range of creative workshops celebrating the history of the 18th century mollies.

In the 18th Century, ‘Molly’ was a slang word for a Gay man, or a lower-class woman who was sometimes a sex worker, while Molly Houses were the meeting place for the early homosexual subculture between 1700 and 1820. At the core of the project was the belief that we are all more than a singular identity. In celebrating the heritage of queer and sex worker communities, we explored sexuality and gender alongside race and class identities.

The project had over 20 other partners within the queer, sex worker, HIV and local community, those include: St. Margaret’s House, Tower Hamlets and London Metropolitan Archives, Positively UK, East London Out Project, Queer Tours of London, Sex Worker’s Opera, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama among others.

I lead weekly workshops on C18th historical dress rooted in the culturally diverse, Queer and social history of C18th. London. Practical workshops on costume design, sewing techniques, pattern cutting and embellishment empowered participants to design and create costumes for their own C18th. Molly character to be worn at the finale of the ‘Molly’s Masquerade Ball’.