Sarah A. Bendall – författare

Processes of making in early modern Europe were both tacit and embodied. Whether making pottery, food, or textiles, the processes of manual production rested on an intersensory connection between mind, body, and object. This volume focuses on the body of the maker to ask how processes of making, experimenting, experiencing, and reconstructing illuminate early modern assumptions and understandings around manual labour and material life. Answers can be gleaned through both recapturing past skills and knowledge of making and by reconstructing past bodies and bodily experiences using recreative and experimental approaches., In drawing attention to the body, this collection underlines the importance of embodied knowledge and sensory experiences associated with the making practices of historically marginalised groups, such as craftspeople, women, domestic servants, and those who were colonised, to confront biases in the written archive. The history of making is found not only in technological and economic innovations which drove 'progress' but also in the hands, minds, and creations of makers themselves. First interdisciplinary collection of essays to: • Synthesise experimental history approaches used to investigate a wide range of objects – dress, cosmetics, cooking and art – and their makers or wearers in the early modern period. • Demonstrate how attention to objects and making, in both historical and modern experimental contexts, can uncover knowledge of embodied and gendered experiences that are otherwise difficult to access. • Contributes to the recently termed ‘making’ and ‘embodied’ turns in history.

Highly Commended, Society for Renaissance Studies Biennial Book Prize 2022In sixteenth and seventeenth-century England, the female silhouette underwent a dramatic change. This very structured form, created using garments called bodies and farthingales, existed in various extremes in Western Europe and beyond, in the form of stays, corsets, hoop petticoats and crinolines, right up until the twentieth century. With a nuanced approach that incorporates a stunning array of visual and written sources and drawing on transdisciplinary methodologies, Shaping Femininity explores the relationship between material culture and femininity by examining the lives of a wide range of women, from queens to courtiers, farmer’s wives and servants, uncovering their lost voices and experiences. It reorients discussions about female foundation garments in English and wider European history, arguing that these objects of material culture began to shape and define changing notions of the feminine bodily ideal, social status, sexuality and modesty in the early modern period, influencing enduring Western notions of femininity.Beautifully illustrated in full colour throughout, Shaping Femininity is the first large-scale exploration of the materiality, production, consumption and meanings of women’s foundation garments in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England. It offers a fascinating insight into dress and fashion in the early modern period, and offers much of value to all those interested in the history of early modern women and gender, material culture and consumption, and the history of the body, as well as curators and reconstructors.

This study explores – for the first time – the changing professions and roles of the women who worked to clothe six Stuart queens between 1603–1714: Anna of Denmark, Henrietta Maria, Catherine of Braganza, Mary of Modena, Queen Mary II and Queen Anne.Beautifully illustrated in full colour throughout, and using a wide range of written, visual and material sources, this book explores how changing patterns of work and consumption saw women become key producers, retailers and consumers of fashion during the 17th century, and illuminates the strong connections between the royal courts and London’s fashion marketplace.From royal wardrobes, workrooms and laundries to workshops and retail premises in London’s bustling streets, Sarah A. Bendall highlights the integral role that women of multiple backgrounds played in the creation and maintenance of elite dress. The royal accounts show that this work was facilitated by migration, global trade, familial networks and changing guild structures, and that the patronage of queens and elite women was integral to supporting and promoting women’s rise in the fashion trades as celebrated silkwomen, tirewoman, milliners and mantua makers.The Women Who Clothed the Stuart Queens challenges understandings of women’s work in the court, the household and the fashion marketplace, and shows how clothing played a key role in women’s economic participation in 17th and 18th-century England more broadly. It offers fascinating insights for all those interested in the history of women and gender, fashion, material culture and consumption, and, of course, to all those interested in Stuart history.

This study explores – for the first time – the changing professions and roles of the women who worked to clothe six Stuart queens between 1603–1714: Anna of Denmark, Henrietta Maria, Catherine of Braganza, Mary of Modena, Queen Mary II and Queen Anne.Beautifully illustrated in full colour throughout, and using a wide range of written, visual and material sources, this book explores how changing patterns of work and consumption saw women become key producers, retailers and consumers of fashion during the 17th century, and illuminates the strong connections between the royal courts and London’s fashion marketplace.From royal wardrobes, workrooms and laundries to workshops and retail premises in London’s bustling streets, Sarah A. Bendall highlights the integral role that women of multiple backgrounds played in the creation and maintenance of elite dress. The royal accounts show that this work was facilitated by migration, global trade, familial networks and changing guild structures, and that the patronage of queens and elite women was integral to supporting and promoting women’s rise in the fashion trades as celebrated silkwomen, tirewoman, milliners and mantua makers.The Women Who Clothed the Stuart Queens challenges understandings of women’s work in the court, the household and the fashion marketplace, and shows how clothing played a key role in women’s economic participation in 17th and 18th-century England more broadly. It offers fascinating insights for all those interested in the history of women and gender, fashion, material culture and consumption, and, of course, to all those interested in Stuart history.