Dressing for the Tudor Court was no simple matter, with rules around who could wear what, the challenge and expense of obtaining fabrics and jewels, and the fine line between being a glittering appendage to the court or a treasonous upstart! Eleri Lynn, Fashion Historian and author of a number of books on Tudor Fashion and Textiles, joined me to talk about the clothes of the Tudors and how they were as central to their world as politics and religion.
Eleri Lynn, a fashion and textiles curator, author and historian, specialising in the Tudor period
She gained her experience as an Assistant Curator within the Furniture, Textiles and Fashion Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum before becoming Curator of the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection at Historic Royal Palaces.
She has appeared on many TV documentaries including BBC2’s ‘Art That Made Us’ and BBC1’s ‘Elizabeth: Fashioning a Monarch’.
Eleri is the author of several monographs: Fashion in Detail: Underwear (V&A Publications, 2010), Tudor Textiles (Yale University Press, 2020), and Tudor Fashion (Yale University Press, 2017) - on which this interview is based.
Eleri has curated several major fashion and textiles exhibitions including Diana: Her Fashion Story (Kensington Palace, 2017) and The Lost Dress of Elizabeth I (Hampton Court Palace, 2019).
Most recently she was Head of Exhibitions at National Museum Wales and is a Trustee of the Royal School of Needlework, based at Hampton Court Palace. She is currently working researching and writing a new book on the history of fashion.
Dressing for the Tudor Court