Victorian Clothes in Mrs Gaskell’s Fiction

This event is live at 16 Queen Square (not online)

The ladies of Cranford – perhaps Elizabeth Gaskell’s best-loved novel – ‘always dressed with chaste elegance and propriety’ we are told. In this illustrated talk, fashion historian Penelope Ruddock will look at this Victorian ideal as well as some mid-nineteenth century clothes that feature in Gaskell’s fiction and how her novels illuminate the everyday concerns women and men had about what they wore and how they looked.

Penelope Byrde Ruddock – Former curator of the Museum of Costume, now the Fashion Museum, Bath