Professor Lesley Miller
- Professor of Dress and Textile History (History of Art)
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https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1957-7411Research interests
Research Interests
Lesley contributes to the MLitt Dress and Textile Histories at the University of Glasgow, and welcomes proposals from graduate students interested in pursuing doctoral research on 18th-century dress and textile topics, in particular topics that seek to unite the investigation of objects with archival research.
Biography
Lesley Miller is Senior Curator of Textiles and Dress (before 1800), in the Furniture, Textiles and Fashion Department at the Victoria & Albert Museum and is currently Lead Curator for refurbishment and reinterpretation of the galleries devoted to Europe 1600-1815. Before joining the V&A in 2005, Lesley taught dress and textile history 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 History of Dress at the Courtauld Institute. Having discovered the joys of research in the relatively new field of 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 Brazil, France, Spain and the US. 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 Portraits in Silk on 18th-century Lyonnais designer manufacturers.
Research Projects
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 Denmark, Finland and Sweden.
Supervision
I welcome PhD applications from students in the areas of early modern dress and textile history.
Additional Information
EXTERNAL RESPONSIBILITIES
Lesley is a member of the Pasold Research Fund and on the Editorial Board of Textile History. She is one of the four Vice-Presidents of CIETA (Centre International pour l’Etude des Textiles Anciens) and on the Scientific Committee of the Festival de la Soie in Lyon.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS / FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS
Selling Silks. A Merchant’s Sample Book of 1764 (V&A, 2014; translated into French as Soieries. Un livre d’échantillons d’un marchand français au siècle des Lumières, Bibliothèque des Arts, 2014)
Princely Treasures. Masterpieces of European Decorative Art from the Victoria and Albert Museum, edited with Sarah Medlam London: V&A Publishing, 2011 (also author of section on ‘Fashion and Personal Adornment’, pp. 154-89).
Balenciaga. The Couturiers’ Couturier, London : V&A Publishing, 2007 (translated into Spanish as Balenciaga: Modisto de modistos, Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 2007)
‘Material Marketing. How Lyonnais Silk Manufacturers Sold Silks, 1660-1789’ to be published in Selling Textiles in Early Modern Europe (eds Bruno Blondé and Jon Stobart), forthcoming Palgrave, 2014.
