Pair of Elizabethan gauntlet mittens at Dunham Massey, NT

The Tudor monarchs and their courtiers are some of the best-known figures in history. Even today, their stories continue to spark our curiosity and imagination. Their enduring popularity is partly due to the iconic portraits in which they are depicted in magnificent style: in farthingales and elaborate ruffs, covered in furs and jewels, and clothed in vast expanses of velvet and silk. Far from being decoration, at that time fashion was pivotal in communicating the status and power of the wearer. Tudor dress was used as a tool in securing and holding a tenuous Tudor throne, as well as a competitive “weapon” in the factions, intrigues, and love affairs of the court. In this talk, Eleri Lynn, will explore the changing fashions of the Tudor wardrobe and explain the elaborate process of dressing. Using rare surviving garments and textiles, original documents, and archaeological records, she will explain how fashion was central to the Tudors’ mindset and their very understanding of royalty and power.

Eleri Lynn

Eleri Lynn is a fashion and textiles historian, curator, and author. She gained her curatorial experience within the Textiles and Fashion Department of the V&A Museum before becoming Curator of the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection at Historic Royal Palaces, and thereafter Head of Exhibitions at National Museum Wales. She is a Trustee of the Royal School of Needlework, based at Hampton Court Palace. Her recent TV appearances include the BBC2 ‘Art That Made Us’ series and BBC1’s, regularly interview her ‘Elizabeth: Fashioning a Monarch’. She is the author of several monographs among which include Tudor Fashion (Yale University Press, 2017), and Tudor Textiles (Yale University Press, 2020), and a contributor to Floral Culture in the Tudor and Stuart Courts (Amsterdam University Press, 2023). Eleri is the curator of several major fashion and textiles exhibitions including Diana: Her Fashion Story (Kensington Palace, 2017), The Lost Dress of Elizabeth I (Hampton Court Palace, 2019), and Undressed: 350 Years of Underwear in Fashion (V&A touring, 2013-14). She was part of the curatorial teams on Savage Beauty: Alexander McQueen (V&A, 2013), Fashion Rules Restyled (Kensington Palace, 2015), and Crown to Couture (Kensington Palace, 2023).