Elizabeth Currie
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ecurrie.bsky.social
Elizabeth Currie
@ecurrie.bsky.social
420 followers 250 following 65 posts
Dress and textile historian. New book 'Street Style: Art and Dress in the Time of Caravaggio' out Sept 2025. Joint Series Editor MUP Studies in Design and Material Culture. Lecturer at Central Saint Martins: https://independent.academia.edu/ElizabethCurrie
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ecurrie.bsky.social
Central Saint Martins is looking and smelling very woolly today with lots of talks, demonstrations + displays, part of the college's ongoing collaboration with British Wool.
#textilehistory
#fashionhistory
A row of hanging wool jackets in red, orange and yellow by designer Paul Smith Colourful samples of woven wool by students at Central Saint Martins, London
November 28, 2025 at 1:43 PM
ecurrie.bsky.social
Someone really had fun with metal threads and wire here. Not content with a shiny dress, crown and sceptre, this very regal Esther has two attendants holding up her train and a parasol in a c. 1640 embroidery at The Holburne Museum, Bath.
#textilehistory
#fashionhistory
An embroidery of a queen with two attendants and a castle in the background. They are surrounded by small insects, birds and flowers.
November 25, 2025 at 3:32 PM
ecurrie.bsky.social
The recently opened Fragonard Fashion and Costume Museum in Arles, with some beautifully displayed 18th-19th century outfits.
🪡🗃️
Brightly coloured bodice and skirt printed in Jouy-en-Josas around 1790 Orange-red sack-back gown, matching stomacher and petticoat, c. 1770 Brown day dress printed with yellow diamonds made of glazed cotton with a ruffled shirt collar (reconstructed) c. 1815
November 14, 2025 at 5:50 PM
ecurrie.bsky.social
I'll be in Oxford on 28 October talking about clothing and the poor in Rome for the Italian Early Modern World Seminar. This is their line up for the term:
italianhistory.web.ox.ac.uk/early-modern...
🗃️🪡
#earlymodern
Detail of the tapestry of The Healing of the Lame Man designed by Raphael, showing a kneeling man wearing a sleeveless linen tunic and holding a stick.
October 24, 2025 at 8:04 AM
ecurrie.bsky.social
The Museum of the Order of St John is hosting a launch event for my book on 22 October. I'll be talking about the paintings of Mattia Preti, dress, textiles and life in Malta in the seventeenth century.
🗃️🪡 #earlymodern
📷 Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/talk-matti...
Two men and a woman playing music and a game of draughts seated around a table in a dark interior. They are wearing brightly coloured, striped clothing.
October 8, 2025 at 9:21 AM
ecurrie.bsky.social
Giovanni Bellini's Saint Jerome with an impressive tunic, complete with side clip and mini bag. Currently on display at The Courtauld Gallery with other paintings loaned from The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham.
🗃️🪡
Detail of Saint Jerome's draped white linen tunic Saint Jerome seated opposite a lion with a thorn in his paw in a rocky landscape by Giovanni Bellini, c. 1455
September 16, 2025 at 7:16 AM
ecurrie.bsky.social
The Velasco show at the National Gallery, London, is well worth a visit before it closes on 17 August. As well as epic landscapes, it offers a glimpse into Mexico's burgeoning textile industry in the nineteenth century.
#textilehistory
A volcanic peak rises up behind extensive plains covered with lush vegetation. The buildings of a textile mill can be seen towards the horizon. A goatherd follows his flock on the banks next to an industrial dam supplying the textile mill La Hormiga shown on the right of the painting.
August 3, 2025 at 11:22 AM
ecurrie.bsky.social
The portrait collection at Knole @nationaltrust.org.uk lived up to expectations - especially the newly conserved painting of Ralph Bosville.
#earlymodern 🗃️🪡
Detail of a portrait of Mary Curzon with an elaborately embroidered dress and ostrich feather fan. Portrait of Mary Sackville by William Larkin with an embroidered bodice and her hair twisted in sections to fan out around her head. Portrait of the French author Ninon de Lenclos with striking braided hair and a pearl necklace. Detail of portrait of Ralph Bosville with a magnificently pinked matching doublet and hose in shiny black satin with a red lining.
July 13, 2025 at 11:00 AM
ecurrie.bsky.social
Carlo Crivelli's 'Annunciation' is one of many works to get a new lease of life in the National Gallery rehang. It's the first time I spotted this woman - perhaps a servant - spinning thread under an archway in the background.
www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/ca...
Detail of a painting showing a man in civic robes in the foreground and a woman in the background, wearing everyday dress holding a distaff. Painting to commemorate the right to self-government of Italian town Ascoli Piceno showing the Annunciation and local patron Saint Emidius. It includes a view into a lavishly furnished interior and a busy street scene.
May 10, 2025 at 11:55 AM
ecurrie.bsky.social
Two big #fashionhistory shows in Paris this Spring: Worth at Le Petit Palais and "Au fil de l'or" at the Quai Branly - a sweeping overview of the use of gold (and its imitations) in textiles.
Detail of the skirt of a shimmering, gold embroidered dress by Chinese designer Guo Pei. Close up of the bodice of an oyster silk evening gown brocaded with yellow flowers and foliage, House of Worth, 1892
May 7, 2025 at 2:03 PM
ecurrie.bsky.social
Fabulous sea creatures and birds, part of a large embroidered hanging at Girona cathedral, thought to date from the twelfth century.

#textilehistory 🪡
Detail from a large religious medieval embroidery showing creatures swimming in the waves and birds above them. Detail from a large religious medieval embroidery showing creatures swimming in the waves and birds above them.
March 26, 2025 at 11:10 AM
ecurrie.bsky.social
Interesting review of Owen Hatherley's book on the impact of European refugees on British postwar art, architecture and design. Hopefully textile designers like Jacqueline Groag, Tibor Reich etc get a mention too.

📷 Marian Mahler, 1950, V&A

#textilehistory🪡

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/m...
A bold red furnishing fabric by Marian Mahler, with multi-coloured abstract shapes strung together with thin lines.
March 25, 2025 at 8:49 AM
ecurrie.bsky.social
My book 'Street Style: Art and Dress in the Time of Caravaggio' is in @reaktionbooks.bsky.social Autumn/Winter catalogue. The cover is a detail of a painting by Valentin de Boulogne in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.
reaktionbooks.co.uk/catalogues

#fashionhistory

#earlymodern
Detail of a painting showing two young men wearing bright clothing and feathers. A Romani fortune teller is reading the palm of the man on the right.
March 20, 2025 at 9:45 AM
ecurrie.bsky.social
There's a fantastic section showing the textiles that inspired artists like Simone Martini at the National Gallery's 'Siena' exhibition, with an accompanying catalogue essay by Lisa Monnas.
#nationalgallery
#textilehistory 🪡
Detail of a 14th-century brightly coloured Spanish textile with geometric pattern. Textile fragment with small gold leaves, Central Asia or Greater Iran, late 13th-early 14th century. Late 13th-early 14th century crimson velvet with gold discs, woven in Iran. Detail of a 14th-century brightly coloured Spanish textile with geometric pattern.
March 8, 2025 at 8:55 AM
ecurrie.bsky.social
Fashionably dressed visitors at Southwark pleasure gardens open from 1831-56, promoting zoology + 'healthful amusement' with an erupting replica of Mount Vesuvius. From the small but fascinating show on the Lost Gardens of London at the Garden Museum, closing tomorrow. #fashionhistory #gardenhistory
Print showing Summer Fashions at the Surrey Zoological Gardens in 1844.
March 1, 2025 at 11:32 AM
ecurrie.bsky.social
Excited to see a copy of 'Refashioning the Renaissance' - congratulations to @paulahohti.bsky.social and the project team. It's a beautifully designed book with colour illustrations and covers a wide range of fashion-related themes - it will be used in so many ways! 👏 #earlymodern #fashionhistory
January 21, 2025 at 8:37 AM
ecurrie.bsky.social
Some glorious lace and embroidery details from the Howard family portraits by William Larkin, looking especially good with new lighting at Kenwood House, as discussed by Elizabeth Goldring in this LRB article:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
November 19, 2024 at 5:45 PM
ecurrie.bsky.social
I've always admired the cover of this book - a gift to my mother from one of her students - and it turns out that the pattern is based on a wood engraving by textile designer Enid Marx. Published by Curwen Press, 1925.
#textilehistory
November 19, 2024 at 5:45 PM
ecurrie.bsky.social
I've always admired the cover of this book - a gift to my mother from one of her students - and it turns out that the pattern is based on a wood engraving by textile designer Enid Marx. Published by Curwen Press, 1925.
#textilehistory
November 19, 2024 at 5:45 PM
ecurrie.bsky.social
Lucienne Day is probably best known for her printed textiles for Heal's but later in life she designed c. 200 silk mosaics, the focus of an interesting display at the Margaret Howell shop in London until 3 November.
#textilehistory
November 19, 2024 at 5:45 PM
ecurrie.bsky.social
Spending Caravaggio's birthday reviewing copyedits for my book 'Street Style: Art and Dress in the Time of Caravaggio' out next year with Reaktion, with lots of costume books, tavern scenes, plus altarpieces like 'The Madonna of the Rosary', Vienna and 'The Madonna of Loreto', Rome.
#earlymodern
November 19, 2024 at 5:45 PM
ecurrie.bsky.social
Distinctive Ainu robe and apron made of embroidered bark cloth at #Mingei exhibition at the William Morris Gallery. Worth seeing before it closes on Sunday: ceramics, textiles, prints exploring Japanese folk art and craft traditions. www.wmgallery.org.uk/event/art-wi...
November 19, 2024 at 5:45 PM
ecurrie.bsky.social
One of my favourite paintings at #Ashmolean but I still can't work out who these four furry creatures are making their escape from the fire.

#earlymodern

📷 Piero di Cosimo, 'The Forest Fire' (c.1505)
November 19, 2024 at 5:45 PM
ecurrie.bsky.social
New favourite sleeve in the 'Portrait of Isaac Abrahamsz Massa' by Frans Hals (1622) at the National Gallery. Technical examination last year showed there used to be a skull and a monstrous personification of envy behind his shoulder but for some reason they got painted over.
November 19, 2024 at 5:45 PM
ecurrie.bsky.social
A woman reading by Gwen John, apparently based on a Head of the Virgin by Albrecht Dürer. In the show at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, now in its final weeks.
November 19, 2024 at 5:45 PM