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.

My research interests include:

• Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Scottish dress, textiles and identity
• Cloth, clothing and social control
• Historic influences of climate and environment on cloth production, trade and use
• Scottish material culture
• Material culture studies methodologies

I have published on numerous aspects of Scottish textile and dress history, including tartan, Turkey red dyed and printed cotton, and Ayrshire whitework. My first monograph, Transatlantic Threads: Scottish Linen and Society, c.1707-1780 (Edinburgh University Press, 2025), is a socio-cultural history of the making, movement and meaning of linen in Scotland and the transatlantic world. It explores 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.

From 2019 to 2022 I was Co-I on an AHRC funded project, ‘Fleece to Fashion: Economies and Cultures of Knitting in Modern Scotland’, led by Prof Lynn Abrams, History. The project widened our understanding of the knitting industry in Scotland, including fashion, gendered labour, and the relationships between craft-based and industrial production. The project’s book, Knitting in Scotland: Culture, Craft and Industry, c.1880-2020, co-authored with Lynn Abrams, Roslyn Chapman, Lin Gardner and Marina Moskowitz, will be published by Bloomsbury in 2026.

My current work explores the broader state of material culture studies in Scottish history, and more specifically an examination of responses to climate change and environmental conditions in the eighteenth century through cloth production and sartorial choices. This includes a study of Scottish clothing seen through the eyes of English artist Paul Sandby (1731-1809) in the wake of the 1745 Jacobite Rising, and an edited volume which showcases the most recent work on Scottish material culture, Material Scotland.

List by: Type | Date

• AHRC Research Grant, Fleece to Fashion: Economies and Cultures of Knitting in Modern Scotland (2019-2022), Co-I with PI Prof Lynn Abrams and Co-I Prof Marina Moskowitz.

• 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.

Students In Progress:

Cynthia C. Kirk

Charlene Jordan (SGSAH funded)

Naa Densua Tordzo (James McCune Smith Scholar)

Samantha Meyerson 

Helen Persson Swain (SGSAH funded)

Prerana Nair (University of Edinburgh)

Aisha Tahir (SGSAH funded, University of Edinburgh)

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

Jonathan Cleaver, 'The interrelationship of carpet weaving technologies and design in the work of James Templeton and Company, Glasgow carpet manufacturer, 1890-1939', PhD (2021)

Victoria de Lorenzo, 'Connecting threads: the transatlantic textile trade between nineteenth-century Britain and the Spanish speaking world', PhD (2024)

Esther Draycott, 'Depth and surface: women's style as memorial, resisitance and reverie in late 1970s and 1980s Glasgow', PhD (Glasgow School of Art, 2024)

Postgraduate:

• 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

• Dissertation Supervision MLitt

Undergraduate:

• Level 2 History of Art

• Historical Dress in Film and TV (Junior Honours)

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

• Undergraduate Dissertation Supervision

Other:

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

Research fellowships

• 2019 - 2019: Research Incentive Grant, Carnegie Trust
• 2015 - 2015: John D. Rockefeller Library Fellowship, Colonial Williamsburg
• 2013 - 2013: Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies

Professional & learned societies

• 2016 - 2024: Committee Member, Museums Galleries Scotland, Recognition Scheme Committee
• 2017: Trustee, Scottish Tartans Authority
• 2017 - 2019: Trustee, Scottish Historical Review Trust
• 2019 - 2024: Secretary, Scottish Historical Review Trust
• 2018 - 2024: Member, Pasold Research Fund
• 2024: Governor, Pasold Research Fund
• 2021: Curatorial Advisory Panel, Paxton House

AFFILIATIONS:

• Chair of Governors, Pasold Research Fund
• Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• Curatorial Panel Member, Paxton House, Berwickshire
• Trustee, Scottish Tartans Authority
• Member, V&A Dundee Decolonisation Advisory Board
• Secretary, Scottish Historical Review Trust (2019-2024)
• Committee Member, Museums, Galleries Scotland Recognition Scheme (2016-2023)

 PODCASTS, VIDEOS AND TELEVISION:

• Human Footprint, Series 2, Episode 3: Dressed to Kill, July 2025

• Love Scotland, National Trust for Scotland Podcast Series 9, Episode 1: Fashion Stories from the Georgian House, May 2024

• Paisley Regeneration: The History of Paisley Thread Making, July 2022

• Redressing History Podcast, University of Brighton, Episode 1: Slave Cloth with Dr Anna Vaughan Kett, February 2022

• 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

EXHIBITION WORK:

• Consultant for Fashioning Ramsay, Georgian House, National Trust for Scotland, 2024
• Advisory panel member for Tartan, V&A Dundee, 2023-2024
• Contributor to AV for Wild and Majestic: Romantic Visions of Scotland, National Museums Scotland, 2019
• Colouring the Nation Online Exhibition, National Museums Scotland / University of Edinburgh 2011-2013