DISSERTATION
V&A/RCA History of Design
June 2026

This dissertation examines the emergence of the mantua in late seventeenth-century England and its relation to the organisation of female labour in London's needlework trades, 1630-1680. Combining archival research with object-based analysis, drawing on the Merchant Taylors' Company archives, Queen Henrietta Maria's wardrobe accounts, and garments at the V&A and The Costume Institute, it reconstructs the design, production, and skill networks behind the mantua's development. The research argues that the mantua was not a sudden innovation but the culmination of an existing culture of female skill, labour, and economic agency, with the adaptability of its makers marking a pivotal moment of expanding entrepreneurial opportunity for women in the seventeenth-century garment trade.

OBJECT ESSAY
V&A/RCA History of Design
December 2025

This essay examines an embroidered picture (c.1650-1660) in the Victoria and Albert Museum's collection, depicting Charles I and, presumably, his son and heir Charles II, to explore how people experienced politics in the domestic sphere after the Interregnum. Combining materiality analysis with close object study, it traces the embroidery's techniques and imagery back to the frontispiece of the Eikon Basilike and the wider print culture that shaped royalist iconography following the King's execution. Drawing on the concept of "loyal objects," the essay argues that the embroidery is more than a decorative domestic piece: it evidences the maker's engagement with political print, and shows how embroidery channelled personal loyalty and hope for restoration into a lasting, material form, turning domestic craft into a quiet act of political expression at a time when royalist imagery carried real risk.

CREATIVE ESSAY/DISSERTATION
Costume for Stage and Screen, UAL
June 2022

This study examines how Elizabeth I used dress to convey power in her portraits, combining contextual research, portrait analysis, and case studies with interviews with leading historians. It finds that rich fabrics, large silhouettes, and symbolism expressed themes from motherhood and virginity to wealth and dominance over other nations, with gender iconography shifting from masculine, as she asserted authority equal to a man, to feminine, once that authority was secured. The study concludes that this shift in gender iconography was Elizabeth's most effective tool of self-representation, culminating in the Rainbow Portrait's image of a woman who is desired, strong, and all-powerful.