Saturday 30 January 2027, 2:30pm
The lives and afterlives of 17th-century fashion
Dr Serena Dyer, historian and broadcaster

Women’s clothing of the 1600s shaped fashion for centuries to come. This lecture reveals how, as the needle passed from male tailors to female seamstresses and mantua-makers, the way that women’s garments were made and sold was altered forever.

Serena Dyer is a historian, curator, and broadcaster specialising in histories of fashion, craft, and making. She is the author of Material Lives (Bloomsbury, 2021), Labour of the Stitch (Cambridge University Press, 2024), and the forthcoming Georgian Fashion (Yale University Press, 2027). She has presented the Fashion Through History digital series for English Heritage, and regularly appears on TV and radio. She was previously Associate Professor of Fashion History at De Montfort University, and has also held academic and curatorial posts at the University of Warwick and the National Portrait Gallery.