A Portrait of Fashion: Six Centuries of Dress at the National Portrait Gallery

Aileen Ribeiro is Emeritus Professor of the History of Dress at The Courtauld Institute of Art, London. She is internationally renowned as an authority on the history of dress, and has written many books and articles on the subject, most recently Fashion and Fiction: Dress in Art and Literature in Stuart England (2005). In addition, she has been a costume consultant to major portrait exhibitions in the UK and US, including Whistler, Women and Fashion at the Frick Collection, New York (2003). Cally Blackman is Associate Lecturer at Central Saint Martins (University of the Arts, London), and holds degrees in Fashion Design and History of Art, as well as an MA in History of Dress from The Courtauld Institute of Art, London. Amongst many other publications, she is the author of 100 Years of Fashion (2012).

Costume, portraiture and the presentation of the individual have been intimately linked throughout the history of art. While the face of the person portrayed is often still directly accessible to us, the details and significance of their dress can be less easy to comprehend. Lavishly illustrated throughout with paintings, drawings, photographs and other works of art, this beautiful publication is centred around 190 examples from the National Portrait Gallerys Collection. Through these, the authors explore the purpose and original context of the dress in which the sitter was recorded the damasks, satins, velvets and furs of Tudor and Stuart magnificence worn by Queen Elizabeth I and Charles I, but also the revolutionary simplicity of the cottons, linens and woollen cloth adopted by Mary Wollstonecraft, John Constable and John Clare. Packed with photographs that provide additional insights into the clothes worn by sitters in their portraits, and complemented by related material including fabric designs and jewellery, this authoritative guide looks in detail at one of the most fascinating aspects of many well-­ known images of the last 600 years.