My research interests include:

• Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Scottish dress and textile history
• Cloth, clothing and social control
• Clothing and identity
• Textile trades in a transatlantic contextbiography

Having studied History at undergraduate level at the University of Edinburgh, I went on to do a Masters in Scottish Studies which introduced me to the world of material culture and consumption. My PhD, also at the University of Edinburgh, built on these interests by investigating the clothing and textiles of eighteenth-century Scotland, exploring how these items can be interpreted as symbols of wider cultural, social and economic practices.

CURRENT RESEARCH

I am currently working on two research projects. The first is an exploration of the Scottish linen industry in the eighteenth century, looking at the connections this industry had with clothing enslaved people in the West Indies and North America, and how we can use cloth and clothing to try and understand their experiences. This work is forming the basis of a book Transatlantic Threads: Linen in a Scottish-American Context (forthcoming, Edinburgh University Press).

The second is an AHRC funded project ‘Fleece to Fashion: Economies and Cultures of Knitting in Modern Scotland’, led by Prof Lynn Abrams, History. This project is widening our understanding of the knitting industry in Scotland, including its relationship with fashion, gendered labour, and the relationships between craft-based and industrial production.

List by: Type | Date

• Co-investigator on Fleece to Fashion: Economies and Cultures of Knitting in Modern Scotland (AHRC funded, three years).

• Carnegie Research Incentive Grant, ‘Transatlantic Threads: Linen in the Scottish-American Contexts, c1707-1830’, 2019-2021.

• Research Fellow, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library Fellowship, Colonial Williamsburg, VA, USA, August-September 2015.

• Research Fellow, Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, Richmond, VA, USA, August 2014

• Researcher Led Initiative Grant, University of Edinburgh.

• Research Fellow, Winterthur Museum and Library, Wilmington, DE, USA, August 2012.

I welcome PhD applications from students in the areas of dress and textile history, particularly those interested in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

• Persson Swain, Birgitta Helen
  Chinese painted silks: craftmanship and fashion in the 18th century

• Framing Dress and Textile Histories

• Birth of Modern Fashion? Textiles and Dress, c.1680-1815

• Victorian Visions: Dress and Textiles c.1837-1901

• Fabrics of a Nation: Scottish Dress and Textile Histories

• Applying Dress and Textile Histories

• Work Placement Coordinator for Dress and Textile Histories MLitt

• Historical Dress in Film and TV (Junior Honours)

• The Invention of Tradition? Material Culture and Scottish Identity, 1707-1822 (Senior Honours)

• A History of Royal Fashion, free online course in association with Historic Royal Palaces

AFFILIATION:

• Museums, Galleries Scotland Recognition Scheme (Committee Member)
• Pasold Research Fund (Member)
• Paxton House (Curatorial Panel)
• Scottish Historical Review Trust (Secretary)
• Scottish Tartans Authority (Trustee)
• V&A Dundee Decolonisation Advisory Board (Member)

 PODCASTS AND VIDEOS:

• British Textile Biennial, ‘Wool: Episode 2’, September 2021
• The Innovation Podcast Series, ‘Creating a MOOC in Partnership with Historic Royal Palaces’, 2021
• Fashion History with American Duchess, ‘Study British Royal Fashion History’, 2020
• Glasgow Museums Podcast, ‘A Journey into Tartan’, 2020
• Recreating the Isabella Mactavish Fraser Scottish Tartan Wedding Dress, American Duchess, 2019
• Historical Royal Fashion Learning Resource, Historic Royal Palaces, 2018

ONLINE EXHIBITION:

• Colouring the Nation, National Museums Scotland / University of Edinburgh