Professor Lesley Miller

  • Professor of Dress and Textile History (History of Art)

Biography

Lesley Miller has been a part-time Professor at the University of Glasgow since 2013. Until 2021, she was also Senior Curator of Textiles and Dress (before 1800), in the Furniture, Textiles and Fashion Department at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Between 2010 and 2015, she led the curatorial team on the refurbishment and reinterpretation of the galleries devoted to Europe 1600-1815, subsequently acted as curatorial consultant for the exhibition Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion (2016-7), and project leader and co-editor for the recently published Silk. Fibre, Fabric and Fashion (2018-21). Before joining the V&A in 2005, Lesley taught dress and textile history in Higher Education and was latterly Head of Division in History of Art & Design at the University of Southampton in Winchester.


Lesley took her first degree in Hispanic Studies at the University of Glasgow, then studied for a Masters in History of Dress at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Having discovered the relatively new field of academic dress and textile history, she moved swiftly into research for a PhD at Brighton Polytechnic (now University). Subsequently, she taught Design History at several British universities, and has lectured in Europe and the Americas. A specialist in early modern textiles and fashion, Lesley focuses in particular on aspects of design and commerce in the 18th-century French silk industry, and is currently preparing a book on an 18th-century Lyonnais designer manufacturer.

Research interests

Lesley contributes to the MLitt Dress and Textile Histories at the University of Glasgow and supervises doctoral research on European 18th-century dress and textile topics that unite the investigation of objects with archival research. She also has a particular interest in mid-20th-century French and Spanish fashion and textiles, and the collecting and curating of fashion and textiles.

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2017 | 2015 | 2014 | 2012 | 2009
Number of items: 19.

2024

Miller, Lesley ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2024) L’École gratuite de dessin et la production textile à Lyon au XVIIIe siècle : réévaluer l’utilité et l’application d’un enseignement = The Free School of Drawing and textile production in 18th-century Lyon: reassessing the usefulness and application of a teaching method. In: Khelissa, Anne Perrin and Roffidal, Émilie (eds.) Réseaux et académies d’art au Siècle des lumières en province = Art networks and academies in the French provinces during the Enlightenment. Series: Passages Online (19). Heidelberg University Library; arthistoricum.net: Heidelberg, pp. 55-71. ISBN 9783985010790 (doi: 10.11588/arthistoricum.992.c18972)

2023

Miller, Lesley Ellis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2023) Utility revealed: The École gratuite de dessin and textile production in eighteenth-century Lyon. West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture, 30(2), pp. 134-161. (doi: 10.1086/734153)

2022

Miller, Lesley E. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2022) Lace à la Mode, ca. 1690-1790. In: Cormack, Emma and Majer, Michele (eds.) Threads of Power: Lace from the Textilmuseum St. Gallen. Bard Graduate Center: New York, pp. 210-234. ISBN 9780300263497

Cabrera Lafuente, Ana and Miller, Lesley E. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (Eds.) (2022) Collecting Spain: Coleccionismo de artes decorativas españolas en Gran Bretaña y España = Collecting Spanish Decorative Arts in Britain and Spain. Ediciones Polifemo: Madrid. ISBN 9788416335787

2021

Miller, Lesley Ellis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411, Cabrera Lafuente, Ana and Allen-Johnstone, Claire (Eds.) (2021) Silk: Fibre, Fabric and Fashion. Thames and Hudson / Victoria and Albert Museum: London. ISBN 9780500480656

Miller, Lesley E. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 and Cabrera Lafuente, Ana (2021) Introduction. In: Miller, Lesley Ellis, Cabrera Lafuente, Ana and Allen-Johnstone, Claire (eds.) Silk: Fibre, Fabric and Fashion. Thames and Hudson / Victoria and Albert Museum: London. ISBN 9780500480656

Miller, Lesley Ellis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2021) Concha Herrero Carretero, Álvaro Molina and Jesusa Vega, La Decoración ideada por François Grognard para los apartamentos de la Duquesa de Alba en el Palacio de Buenavista. Textile History, 52(1-2), pp. 217-219. (doi: 10.1080/00404969.2021.1948194)[Book Review]

2017

Miller, Lesley Ellis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2017) Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion. V & A Publishing: London. ISBN 9781851779031

Miller, Lesley Ellis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2017) Making a reputation from innovation: silk designers in Lyon, 1660-1789. In: Welch, Evelyn (ed.) Fashioning the Early Modern: Dress, Textiles and Innovation in Europe, 1500-1800. Series: Pasold studies in textile history. Oxford University Press: Oxford, pp. 187-214. ISBN 9780198738176

Miller, Lesley Ellis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2017) La moda española en el Siglo de Oro [Exhibition Catalogue]. Editado por Rafael García Serrano. Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 94(2), pp. 349-350. (doi: 10.1080/14753820.2017.1328823)[Book Review]

Miller, Lesley Ellis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2017) Reviews of Books: La moda española en el Siglo de Oro [Exhibition Catalogue]. Editado por Rafael García Serrano. Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 94(2), pp. 349-350. (doi: 10.1080/14753820.2017.1328823)[Book Review]

2015

Miller, Lesley Ellis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2015) Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century French Silk Designers. Pasold Research Fund.

2014

Miller, Lesley ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2014) An illustrious English gentleman dressed the Spanish way: the visit of the Prince of Wales to Madrid in 1623. In: Colomer, José Luis and Descalzo, Amalia (eds.) Vestir a la Española en las Cortes Europeas (Siglos XVI y XVII). Series: Confluencias. Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica: Madrid, pp. 293-316. ISBN 9788493677664

Miller, Lesley Ellis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2014) Material marketing: how lyonnais silk manufacturers sold silks, 1660-1789. In: Stobart, Jon and Blondé, Bruno (eds.) Selling Textiles in the Long Eighteenth Century: Comparative Perspectives from Western Europe. Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, pp. 85-98. ISBN 9781137295200

Miller, Lesley Ellis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2014) Selling Silks: a Merchant's Sample Book 1764. V & A Publishing: London. ISBN 9781851777815

2012

Miller, L. (2012) Fidélités trompeuses: la consommation des soieries à Madrid, 1759-1788. In: Rolland, C. (ed.) Autour des Van Loo: Peinture, Commerce des Tissus et Espionnage en Europe (1250-1830). Publications des universités de Rouen et du Havre: Mont-Saint-Aignan, France, pp. 135-144. ISBN 9782877755016

Miller, L. (2012) La Culture de la manufacture: les marchands fabricants. In: Privat-Savigny, M. (ed.) Lyon au XVIIIe siècle: Un Siècle Surprenant! Musées Gadagne/Somogy: Lyon, France, pp. 109-121. ISBN 9782757205808

Miller, L. (2012) A portrait of the 'Raphael of silk design'. V&A Online Journal, 4,

2009

Miller, L. (2009) Departing from the pheasant and the peacock: the role of furnishing textiles in the career of Philippe Lasalle (1723-1804). In: Jolly, A. and Albainy, T. (eds.) Furnishing Textiles: Studies on Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Interior Decoration. Series: Riggisberger Berichte (17). Abegg-Stiftung: Riggisberg, Switzerland, pp. 79-90. ISBN 9783905014365

This list was generated on Wed Jul 2 23:46:36 2025 BST.
Jump to: Articles | Books | Book Sections | Book Reviews | Edited Books
Number of items: 19.

Articles

Miller, Lesley Ellis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2023) Utility revealed: The École gratuite de dessin and textile production in eighteenth-century Lyon. West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture, 30(2), pp. 134-161. (doi: 10.1086/734153)

Miller, L. (2012) A portrait of the 'Raphael of silk design'. V&A Online Journal, 4,

Books

Miller, Lesley Ellis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2017) Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion. V & A Publishing: London. ISBN 9781851779031

Miller, Lesley Ellis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2015) Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century French Silk Designers. Pasold Research Fund.

Miller, Lesley Ellis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2014) Selling Silks: a Merchant's Sample Book 1764. V & A Publishing: London. ISBN 9781851777815

Book Sections

Miller, Lesley ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2024) L’École gratuite de dessin et la production textile à Lyon au XVIIIe siècle : réévaluer l’utilité et l’application d’un enseignement = The Free School of Drawing and textile production in 18th-century Lyon: reassessing the usefulness and application of a teaching method. In: Khelissa, Anne Perrin and Roffidal, Émilie (eds.) Réseaux et académies d’art au Siècle des lumières en province = Art networks and academies in the French provinces during the Enlightenment. Series: Passages Online (19). Heidelberg University Library; arthistoricum.net: Heidelberg, pp. 55-71. ISBN 9783985010790 (doi: 10.11588/arthistoricum.992.c18972)

Miller, Lesley E. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2022) Lace à la Mode, ca. 1690-1790. In: Cormack, Emma and Majer, Michele (eds.) Threads of Power: Lace from the Textilmuseum St. Gallen. Bard Graduate Center: New York, pp. 210-234. ISBN 9780300263497

Miller, Lesley E. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 and Cabrera Lafuente, Ana (2021) Introduction. In: Miller, Lesley Ellis, Cabrera Lafuente, Ana and Allen-Johnstone, Claire (eds.) Silk: Fibre, Fabric and Fashion. Thames and Hudson / Victoria and Albert Museum: London. ISBN 9780500480656

Miller, Lesley Ellis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2017) Making a reputation from innovation: silk designers in Lyon, 1660-1789. In: Welch, Evelyn (ed.) Fashioning the Early Modern: Dress, Textiles and Innovation in Europe, 1500-1800. Series: Pasold studies in textile history. Oxford University Press: Oxford, pp. 187-214. ISBN 9780198738176

Miller, Lesley ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2014) An illustrious English gentleman dressed the Spanish way: the visit of the Prince of Wales to Madrid in 1623. In: Colomer, José Luis and Descalzo, Amalia (eds.) Vestir a la Española en las Cortes Europeas (Siglos XVI y XVII). Series: Confluencias. Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica: Madrid, pp. 293-316. ISBN 9788493677664

Miller, Lesley Ellis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2014) Material marketing: how lyonnais silk manufacturers sold silks, 1660-1789. In: Stobart, Jon and Blondé, Bruno (eds.) Selling Textiles in the Long Eighteenth Century: Comparative Perspectives from Western Europe. Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, pp. 85-98. ISBN 9781137295200

Miller, L. (2012) Fidélités trompeuses: la consommation des soieries à Madrid, 1759-1788. In: Rolland, C. (ed.) Autour des Van Loo: Peinture, Commerce des Tissus et Espionnage en Europe (1250-1830). Publications des universités de Rouen et du Havre: Mont-Saint-Aignan, France, pp. 135-144. ISBN 9782877755016

Miller, L. (2012) La Culture de la manufacture: les marchands fabricants. In: Privat-Savigny, M. (ed.) Lyon au XVIIIe siècle: Un Siècle Surprenant! Musées Gadagne/Somogy: Lyon, France, pp. 109-121. ISBN 9782757205808

Miller, L. (2009) Departing from the pheasant and the peacock: the role of furnishing textiles in the career of Philippe Lasalle (1723-1804). In: Jolly, A. and Albainy, T. (eds.) Furnishing Textiles: Studies on Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Interior Decoration. Series: Riggisberger Berichte (17). Abegg-Stiftung: Riggisberg, Switzerland, pp. 79-90. ISBN 9783905014365

Book Reviews

Miller, Lesley Ellis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2021) Concha Herrero Carretero, Álvaro Molina and Jesusa Vega, La Decoración ideada por François Grognard para los apartamentos de la Duquesa de Alba en el Palacio de Buenavista. Textile History, 52(1-2), pp. 217-219. (doi: 10.1080/00404969.2021.1948194)[Book Review]

Miller, Lesley Ellis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2017) La moda española en el Siglo de Oro [Exhibition Catalogue]. Editado por Rafael García Serrano. Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 94(2), pp. 349-350. (doi: 10.1080/14753820.2017.1328823)[Book Review]

Miller, Lesley Ellis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (2017) Reviews of Books: La moda española en el Siglo de Oro [Exhibition Catalogue]. Editado por Rafael García Serrano. Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 94(2), pp. 349-350. (doi: 10.1080/14753820.2017.1328823)[Book Review]

Edited Books

Cabrera Lafuente, Ana and Miller, Lesley E. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411 (Eds.) (2022) Collecting Spain: Coleccionismo de artes decorativas españolas en Gran Bretaña y España = Collecting Spanish Decorative Arts in Britain and Spain. Ediciones Polifemo: Madrid. ISBN 9788416335787

Miller, Lesley Ellis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411, Cabrera Lafuente, Ana and Allen-Johnstone, Claire (Eds.) (2021) Silk: Fibre, Fabric and Fashion. Thames and Hudson / Victoria and Albert Museum: London. ISBN 9780500480656

This list was generated on Wed Jul 2 23:46:36 2025 BST.

Grants

Between 2010 and 2013 Lesley was a Principal Investigator on the major HERA Fashioning the Early Modern: Creativity and Innovation in Europe 1500-1800, collaborating with the project Director Professor Evelyn Welch and partners in universities and museums in Denmark, Finland and Sweden.

 

Supervision

 

Teaching

MLitt Dress and Textile Histories: contributions to

  • Framing Dress and Textile Histories
  • The Birth of Modern Fashion, 1660-1815
  • Applying Dress and Textile Histories
  • Dissertation supervision
  • Placement supervision

Additional information

AFFILIATION
•    Governor of the Pasold Research Fund
•    Vice-President of the CIETA (Centre International pour l’Etude des Textiles Anciens) until November 2023.
•    Member of the Editorial Board of Textile History
•    Member of scientific committee for the Renaissance of the Musée des Tissus and Musée des Arts decoratifs, Lyon (2018-)

BOOK REVIEWS
Concha Herrero Carretero, Alvaro Molina and Jesusa Vega, La decoración ideada por François Grognard para los apartamentos de la Duquesa de Alba en el Palacio de Buenavista, Madrid, La Casa de Velázquez, 2020), Textile History, Vol. 52:1 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1080/00404969.2021.1948194 [Book review]
Clare Backhouse, Fashion and Popular Print in Early Modern England. Depicting Dress in Black-Letter Ballads. (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2017), Costume, Vol.53:1 (March 2019), pp. 127-8 [Book review]
Ludovic Frobert, ed., Archives de Soie. Fabrique et Insurrections à Lyon au Début des Années 1830. Journées d’étude des Musées Gadagne (Silvana Editoriale, Milan, 2014) and Ludovic Frobert and George Sheridan, Le Solitaire du Ravin. Pierre Charnier (1795-1857), Canut Lyonnais et Prud’homme Tisseur (ENS Éditions, Lyon, 2014), Textile History (November 2017), 48:2, pp.283-5. DOI :10.1080/00404969.2017.1379760 [Book review]

FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS
Miller, L.E., ‘Utility Revealed : The École gratuite de dessin and Textile Production in Eighteenth-century Lyon’, West 86th. A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History and Material Culture, forthcoming Fall/Winter, 2023.
Miller, L.E., ‘Utility Reassessed: The École gratuite de dessin and Textile Production in 18th-century Lyon’, in Les réseaux des académies d’art au siècle des Lumières, eds Anne Perrin Khelissa, Émilie Roffidal, with Markus Castor (Centre allemand d’histoire de l’art / Université d’Heidelberg / Université de Toulouse, forthcoming 2022)