Afternoon Tea and Lecture | The Words of Regency Fashion with Hilary Davidson

How did Jane Austen, her contemporaries, and their fashion media describe clothing, and what did they mean when they did? Drawing on new research undertaken for the 2025 book A Guide To Regency Dress: From Corsets and Breeches to Bonnets and Muslin, this presentation looks at the words of fashion in use during Austen’s adult life and their slippery associations with actual garments. The language of dress from this period is not necessarily straightforward to understand now. Words commonly used to describe Regency dress such as ‘bonnet’, ‘Spencer’, ‘chemisette’, or ‘shirt’ had multiple meanings and interpretations for their original wearers. This talk explores the relationships between what clothing, dress, textiles and accessories were called, what they looked like at the time, and some of the joys and challenges of researching definitions from two hundred years ago.

Hilary Davidson is Chair of the MA Fashion and Textile Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, and an honorary associate at the University of Sydney. She was curator of fashion and decorative arts at the Museum of London and has lectured, broadcast and taught across a very wide range of dress and textile history expertise. Her extensive study of British Regency dress has been published as Dress in the Age of Jane Austen: Regency Fashion (2019), Jane Austen’s Wardrobe (2023); and A Guide to Regency Dress from Corsets to Breeches to Bonnets and Muslins (2025) (all by Yale University Press).

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. 

This event is presented on-site at The Johnston Collection. Please see your ticket for details. NOTE: Tickets for this event do not include access to our house museum, Fairhall. Guided tours of the current exhibition can be booked separately. 

This event is supported by The Colin Holden Charitable Trust. 

Image: Promenade & Ball Dress, Fashions of London and Paris, June 1805.