Recently divorced
bank teller Sheila is frequently chastised for small work errors by her bosses. She is intimidated by Gwen, her son Vince's girlfriend. After learning about her ex-husband's new girlfriend and seeing Vince performing
oral sex on Gwen, she visits the department store Dentley & Soper's during their sales to buy a dress for a date. Assisted by enigmatic store clerk Miss Luckmoore, Sheila buys a beautiful, flowing red dress. After wearing the dress, Sheila notices a strange rash on her chest. Her washing machine later breaks down with the dress inside, and Sheila injures her hand retrieving it. At night, the store clerks are shown cleaning a lifelike mannequin, which appears to menstruate, as the elderly proprietor Mr Lundy observes and masturbates. Returning to the store, Sheila learns that the dress is one of its kind, and the store
model who wore it for the catalogue was later killed. Sheila goes on a date with her new suitor Zach while Gwen and Vince have sex. As Gwen climaxes, the dress floats above her and tries to suffocate her. When Sheila and Zach go for a walk, a
German Shepherd attacks her, injuring her leg and ripping the dress, which later appears mysteriously unharmed. At night, Sheila hears the dress move about in the wardrobe. Unsettled, Sheila attempts to return the dress to the store but is refused. She recounts a dream to her bosses at work about seeing her mother reflected in the mirror. With the dress in her car trunk, she drives to another date with Zach. Distracted by two mannequins standing on the road, Sheila gets into an accident and is killed. The dress comes into the possession of washing machine repairman Reg Speaks. A socially awkward man with the uncanny ability to put people into a trance by explaining the mechanics of a washing machine, he struggles to have sex with his fiancée Babs. After being made to wear the dress on his
stag night, he has a disturbing dream of being shut out of the delivery room as Babs gives birth to a baby who emerges wearing the dress. Babs wears the dress to shop at Dentley & Soper's. Luckmoore rebukes Babs for shopping near closing time, but is convinced by Lundy to let her stay. Meanwhile, Reg is hypnotised by the department store's TV advertisement and dies from
carbon monoxide poisoning caused by his boiler. Babs recounts a disturbing dream to Luckmoore in which she becomes the model for the store catalogue but gets thinner and thinner until she ends up being buried in the store. Babs goes into the fitting room while a fight between patrons breaks out, which quickly spirals into looting. The dress falls onto a heater and catches fire, and the flames spread quickly through the store. Babs burns to death in the changing room. Luckmoore flees into the
dumbwaiter with a dismembered mannequin. As she descends deeper into the store, she looks on in ecstasy as she passes the dead catalogue model, Sheila, Reg, and Babs stitching together the dress from threads made of their blood, along with several empty sewing stations implied to be for future wearers. A fireman observes the destroyed store and discovers the dress undamaged amongst the rubble. ==Cast==