Material Culture, Dress and Fashion History
Modern and historical descriptions of Queen Anne (r. 1702–14) have left us with the caricature of an overweight, awkward and prudish woman whose court was unattractive to artists, courtiers and politicians, and whose reign was marked by ill-health and an over reliance on her court favourite Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough.[i] The general Whig picture… Continue reading Queen Anne: Dowdy and dull, or early 18th-century fashionista?
I've decided to launch a YouTube Channel where I will be talking about all things early modern dress, fashion and material culture. I've just released my first video on my top 5 books for those wanting to make 17th-century dress. https://youtu.be/_ubdtSEiXVg?si=8uwFzwoJHdLsILIs Please like and subscribe!
Sew with me! 1650s English bodice and gown reconstruction tutorial and notes.
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
To celebrate the upcoming release of Shaping Femininity I've decided the post the pattern that I made of the garment when I examined it in 2017. A pattern for this garment has since been published by the School of Historical Dress in 2018's Patterns of Fashion 5. The School's pattern is much more detailed than… Continue reading Sittingbourne Bodies Pattern, c. 1630-50
The waistcoat is by far one of the most common pieces of clothing I have come across in the records of seventeenth-century women. While women did wear gowns during this period, if we look across the social spectrum we can see that waistcoats and petticoats were by far the most common garments that were worn… Continue reading Seventeenth-Century Waistcoats for Women: Jacobean Fashions
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!
The 1680s was a decade of change in women's fashion. The new loose-fitting mantua gown vied for popularity with traditional gowns that contained structured bodices (a battle that the new style would win in later decades) and bodies slowly began to be called stays during this decade. One of the best written sources we have… Continue reading Randle Holme’s The Academy of Armory (1688) and late Seventeenth-century Women’s Dress Terminology