Lectures

Afternoon Tea & Lecture | How The French Revolution Shaped Regency Fashion with Emeritus Professor Chris Browne

Saturday 17 Jan 2026, 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM

Liberté, Égalité, Sororité et La Mode

For hundreds of years, the changes in fashion and costume in England and in France have been inextricably linked. The royal court of France at Versailles dictated the trends in fashion in both countries for over 120 years, but the French Revolution and the fall of the French monarchy led to an upheaval in fashion history. This fashion revolution was led by three brave and extraordinary women who are the focus of this lecture. Coming from ordinary, middle-class family beginnings in the French Caribbean, Basque-speaking Spain, and provincial France, Rose, Thérése and Julie, all ascended to the summit of fashionable Parisian society, which they dominated for two decades. These intriguing women established styles which revolutionised life throughout Europe.

Similarly, men’s fashion also went through enormous changes, which arose from cross-Channel influences in both directions. One of the outcomes of all this upheaval was the style of men's costume adopted in England during the Regency period, which, originating in rural England, was established as high fashion in Paris and then codified as standard dress in London.

Professor Chris Browne will lead you through this “costume drama” through consideration of the lives and influences of these three fascinating women. He will discuss how these changes linked to colonial history, and the outcomes that still resonate today.

Emeritus Professor Chris Browne is a retired medical researcher and academic who was born in Hampshire in England, thus sharing a county of birth with Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. He spent much of his childhood in British colonial Africa and the Middle East, before returning to the UK to attend school. Following degrees from the Universities of York and Oxford, and five years in medical research at McGill University in Montreal, he has spent most of his working life in the Faculty of Medicine at Monash University.

Chris became a serious book collector in 1970 and has put together a personal library of around 15,000 books. His main interests are English literature and juvenilia from 1780 to 1940, fine illustrated books and the history of English publishing and printing. He particularly collects books by and about Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Ernest Hemingway and Graham Greene, amongst too many others. He also collects French books and prints, particularly French fashion prints and magazines, French editions of English literature, illustrated French books, and books about the history and culture of Paris.

Since 2016, he has been the Program Director of Melbourne Rare Book Week. Unsurprisingly, his main hobby is reading, although his collecting habit also encompasses Fine Art, French Art Deco glass and pre-WW2 fashion prints.

Join The Friends for another interesting and stimulating presentation. Afternoon tea, to include an array of delicious petit fours and biscuits, will be served on arrival.

NOTE: Tickets for this event do not include access to our exhibition-house, Fairhall. Guided tours of the current exhibition can be booked separately.

This event is supported by The Colin Holden Charitable Trust.

Image: Second flight of Garnerin with Citoyenne Henri from Parc Monceau, 8 July 1798, c.1798, 'Costumes Parisiens'. Private Collection.