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Sarah A. Bendall is a material culture and dress historian and research fellow at the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, ACU. Her work focuses on the role of gender, particularly the place of women, in the production, trade and consumption of global commodities and fashionable consumer goods between 1500-1800.
Her first book, Shaping Femininity, was published with Bloomsbury in 2021. It was shortlisted for the Society of Renaissance Studies (UK) biannual book prize in 2022 and awarded highly commended.
She is currently working on her second book, The Women Who Clothed the Stuart Queens, which is also under contract with Bloomsbury. It uncovers the lives and work of the women who made, sold, managed and cared for the clothing of the Stuart queens between the years 1603 and 1714.
She is co-investigator on the AHRC-funded Making Historical Dress Network (PI: Dr Serena Dyer, De Montfort University) examining recreative and experimental methods in dress history. Other current research projects examine the widespread use of whaling products in fashion between the years 1500-1800.
On this website you will find blog posts and tutorials that feature her research and experimental reconstructions, as well as information about her latest projects and publications.