Lesley Miller: Principal Investigator 2

Research interests:

Tradition and innovation in the European fashion and textiles trades of the 17th and 18th centuries; the role of the designer and merchant in creating and selling silks, with particular reference to 18th-century France and Spain; continuity and change in post-war haute couture.

Research Profile:

Lesley Miller is Senior Curator (Textiles), Furniture, Textiles and Fashion Department at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V & A), London. She studied at the University of Glasgow and the Courtauld Institute of Art before moving to Brighton Polytechnic, where she was awarded her PhD for a thesis entitled ‘Designers in the Lyons Silk Industry, 1712-1787’ in 1988. She taught History of Design for over 20 years. Her most significant publications have focused on aspects of design and commerce in the eighteenth-century French silk industry, and she has written a monograph on the Spanish fashion designer, Cristóbal Balenciaga.

Selected Publications:

“Philippe de Lasalle et les innovations”, in: Les objets qui racontent l’histoire. Inventions et innovations dans la soierie lyonnaise, Lyon : Musée des Tissus, 2009, Chapitre 5, pp. 57-65.

“Les matériaux du costume de cour”, in: Fastes de Cour et cérémonies royales. Le Costume de Cour en Europe 1650 – 1800, exh. cat., ed. Pierre Arrizoli, Château de Versailles, 2009, pp. 78-89.

“Departing from the Pheasant and the Peacock: the Role of Furnishing Textiles in the Career of Philippe Lasalle (1723-1804)”, in: Furnishing Textiles, Riggisberger Berichte, Abegg Stiftung, Riggisberg, 2009, pp. 79-90.

Balenciaga. The Couturiers’ Couturier, London : V&A Publishing, 2007 (translated into Spanish as Balenciaga: Modisto de modistos, Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 2007), 128 pp.

“Textile Manufacturers and Haute Couture”, in: The Golden Age of Haute Couture: Paris and London, 1947-57, London: V&A Publishing, 2007, pp. 113-36; “Balenciaga. Master Tailor”, pp. 154-55.

“Dress to Impress. Prince Charles Plays Madrid, September to May 1623” in: The Journey of the Prince of Wales to Madrid in 1623, ed. Alexander Samson , Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2006, Chapter 2, pp. 27-50.

“Extra muros/intra muros: Universities, Museums and Textile History”, and “Sources for the Study of Dress History, 1750-1900”, in: Tecidos e sua conservação no Brasil: museus e coleções (Textile Conservation in Brazil: museums and collections),conference preprints, São Paulo: USP, 2006, pp. 24-31, 127-130. Printed in English and Portuguese.

“The Marriage of Art and Commerce: Philippe Lasalle’s Success in Silks”, Between Luxury and the Everyday: The Decorative Arts in Eighteenth Century France, eds. Katie Scott and Deborah Cherry, Oxford: Blackwell, 2006, pp. 63-88 (first published as “The Marriage of Art and Commerce: Philippe Lasalle’s Success in Silks?”, Art History, Vol.28:2, Spring 2005, pp. 200-26).

“Les matériaux du costume de cour” in: Fastes de Cour et cérémonies royales. Le Costume de Cour en Europe 1650 – 1800, exh. cat., ed. Pierre Arrizoli, Château de Versailles, 2009, pp. 78-89.