Material Culture, Dress and Fashion History
I’m excited to finally share that I’ve signed a contract with Bloomsbury Visual Arts (an imprint of Bloomsbury Academic) for my next book, The Women Who Clothed the Stuart Queens: Gender and Work in the Royal Wardrobe and the Fashion Marketplace The book examines the lives and changing work of the women who made, sold,… Continue reading Second Book Announcement: The Women Who Clothed the Stuart Queens
Quilted petticoats in England and America are usually attributed to and discussed in the context of the eighteenth century. This is likely due to the fact that all the earliest surviving quilted petticoats (to my knowledge) date from this period. Quilted Petticoat, c. 1740-60 (made), 1870-1910 (altered), British. Victoria and Albert Museum, T.430-1967. I am… Continue reading Quilted Petticoats in the Seventeenth Century
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
In 2018 I spent two months in the UK going through records relating to tailors, body-makers, and farthingale-makers at the Bodleian Library in Oxford and the Drapers' and Clothworker' Companies in London. While doing my archival research at the Drapers' Company hall, I mentioned to the archivist Penny that the unusual name of a… Continue reading The Life and Times of Theophilus Riley: Citizen, Civil War Conspirator and Body-maker.
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!
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.
Tales for the MS Morrell series at the Bodleian Libraries Oxford
Most people do not realise (until they must go through the process) that sourcing rights and permissions for images to use in publications can be a tedious and very expensive process. I am currently sourcing images for my book and other projects, and I recently had an email from my colleague asking where to get… Continue reading The best places to obtain Early Modern Images for use in Publications
I was recently asked to be an allied researcher on the ACIS project Textiles, Trade and Meaning in Italy: 1400-2018, particularly in relation to the clothing and textiles at the court of Mantua under Isabella d’Este. As part of this project I was asked to write a short piece on Isabella's underwear, as part of a… Continue reading Isabella d’Este’s Chemises – Translations from the 1539 Inventory