Material Culture, Dress and Fashion History
Depicting Elizabeth I as mother of her people featured in many discourses during the Tudor queen’s reign. She had responded to her minister’s inquiries about marriage only days into her first parliament in 1559 by stating that she was content to remain a virgin and ‘a good mother of my Country’ until the time came… Continue reading Queen Elizabeth I as Mother, Nurse and Caregiver of the Realm
Come and make a 16th-century Spanish farthingale with me using historically accurate materials and methods, including hoops of bent!! 🧵 🪡 On Saturday the 15 March, I’m teaching a one-day workshop at the Centre for Rare Arts and Forgotten Trades in a partnership between Australian Catholic University in Ballarat, Australia. Int he workshop you will… Continue reading Make a 16th-century Farthingale with me!
In the sixteenth century headwear mattered. Not only was headwear practical and sheltered the wearer from the elements such as the sun, rain or wind, but these garments also participated in a complex social system of etiquette that defined displays of status, power and masculinity. The most common style of hat worn by men during… Continue reading Hats, Headwear and Masculinity in Sixteenth-Century Europe
The first half of the sixteenth century was a period dominated by repeated conflicts in Europe. The immense amounts of practical and ceremonial arms and armour that these conflicts required fuelled this so-called golden age of armour production seen in key centres of production such as Milan, Augsburg, and Tyrol. During these times of occupation,… Continue reading Fortuna and virtù: Embodying Classical Concepts in Renaissance Armour
Shaping Femininity's book launch was held online on 4 November 2021. Chair: Rebecca Unsworth (Birmingham Museums Trust) Discussants: Hilary Davidson (University of Sydney / La Trobe) and Erin Griffey (University of Auckland) To watch the whole launch see the video below: https://youtu.be/JE5Z0BLKHnU
Very excited to announce that my book Shaping Femininity has a cover image and pre-order links! See below for details! About Shaping Femininity In sixteenth and seventeenth-century England, the female silhouette underwent a dramatic change. This very structured form, created using garments called bodies and farthingales, existed in various extremes in Western Europe and beyond,… Continue reading Shaping Femininity Book Cover and Pre-order!
What is a vasquine or basquine? Is it a type of early corset? Read on if you want to find out!
By 1700 tailors no longer dominated England’s garment marketplace, as stay-makers, mantua-makers and seamstresses began to produce key items of female dress previously made by tailors. The demise of the tailoring monopoly was a complex process that involved many factors. This article examines one overlooked aspect of this transition by exploring two groups of specialized artisans that have been previously neglected in histories of seventeenth-century garment production: farthingale-makers and body-makers.
Recently I gave a talk on the use of whale baleen (otherwise known as whalebone) in fashion in sixteenth-century Europe, particularly England.
In 2014 my article on this subject was published by Gender & History and a subsequent blog post titled, '“He shall not haue so much as a buske-point from thee”: Examining notions of Gender through the lens of Material Culture' was posted on the blog for the Journal for the History of Ideas. I figured that… Continue reading Seventeenth-Century Busks, Courtship and Sexual Desire