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Doris Langley Moore and the Museum of Fashion at Bath
I spent a pleasant afternoon at the AGM of the West of England Costume Society where Rosemary Harden, curator of the Fashion Museum at Bath spoke about the origins of the Fashion Museum, which is...
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Painted Pomp: art and fashion in the age of Shakespeare. Exhibition review
Painted Pomp: art and fashion in the age of Shakespeare. Holburne Museum, Bath. 26th January to 6th May 2013The exhibitionhas three interconnecting strands. First there are the Lawson paintings, then...
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Early modern scissors
We revisited the wonderful Musee le Secq des Tournelles in Rouen, a must visit if you are in the town. The Le Secq des Tournelles, father and son, were nineteenth century collectors of wrought, gilt,...
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Mannish viragoes, or audacious men-women – complaints about women’s fashions...
I haven’t blogged for quite a while as I have been writing a paper which I gave last weekend. I’ve put a somewhat reworked section of it below. People have always complained about fashion whether it is...
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The Walton effigies (1620s)
I recently went to St Nicholas church in Gloucester and took photographs of the Walton tomb, which is in a side chapel, the chantry of St Mary. The tomb dates from the 1620s and depicts effigies of...
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Shoehorns by Robert Mindum (active 1593-1612)
Shoe horn by Robert Mindum, 1612, in the Museum of Design in Plastics, BournemouthShoehorns are something I had never really thought about until I went to the Painted Pomp exhibition at the Holburne...
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Edmund Harrison (1591-1667) – the King’s embroiderer
One of Harrison's pictures now in the National Museums of Scotlandclick to see further information from the museum siteThere is often a general assumption that embroidery is a domestic,...
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Small sewing kits
Figure 1 Two different terms are sometimes used for small sewing kits. The housewife or hussif is usually seen as a cloth container, a roll with compartments for the various tools. An etui, from...
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The Calais Museum of Lace and Fashion
Late 16th century laceI spent last weekend in France and made a visit to the excellent Calais museum on the history of lace, the Cite Internationale de la Dentelle et de la Mode de Calais. Calais...
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Muckinder or muckender
Katherine Seymour, Countess of Hertford, with her son Edward, c.1563Muckinder is a wonderful word for what was basically a cloth to clean children’s faces and hands. Recent costume historians have...
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Pins in the Early Modern Period
Close up of the head of a 16th century gold pin in the Portable Antiquities Database The word pin, as in the Oxford English Dictionary definition “A small, thin, rigid piece of metal with a sharp...
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Below the knee: pattens, shoes and hose - the MEDATS (Medieval Dress and...
Figure 1 - Piece of sprang relaxedWhat follows are my notes on what was said for four of the six papers given at the study day. I will write longer notes on the other two papers given; Jutta von Bloh –...
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Sixteenth century survivals in the Dresden Armoury Collection - notes on a...
Early sixteenth century clothing is not something I know much about. What follows are my notes, from a paper given at Below the knee: pattens, shoes and hose - the MEDATS (Medieval Dress and...
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Exhibition and Book Review - In Fine Style: The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion
In Fine Style: The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion, Exhibition at The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, Friday, 10 May 2013 to Sunday, 06 October 2013. The book of the same title is by Anna Reynolds....
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Consumption and Gender in the Early seventeenth Century Household: the world...
Consumption and Gender in the Early seventeenth Century Household: the world of Alice Le Strange, by Jane Whittle and Elizabeth Griffiths. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. £60. ISBN 978 0 19...
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Micheal & Elizabeth Feller - the Needlework Collection 1 – Book review
I can’t believe it has taken me two years to catch up with this sumptuously illustrated book, especially since I have another book by the same publishers which I have reviewed on here. Micheal and...
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Pantofles and the origins of slippers and mules.
This is a quick look at pantofles, slippers and mules. The problem with what museums call things in their collection, is that they are often using modern descriptions to categorise. Words change their...
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The Knitting History Forum, 9th November 2013
I spent a pleasant day yesterday at the KHF conference, where six speakers provided a wealth of information on knitting from the 16thcentury to the present day. So many thanks to Sandy Black who was...
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MEDATS (Medieval Dress and Textile Society ) Study Day 23rd Nov 2013
An excellent study day on Saturday with MEDATS, held in the bowels of the British Museum. What follows is my impression of the papers given; any mistakes or misunderstandings are my own.From the...
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The Cheapside Hoard – Exhibition and book review.
The Cheapside HoardThis exhibition is on until 27th April 2014, so if you can get to it, go. If you can’t get to it, buy the book. Having said that getting into the exhibition is interesting, no...
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