DRESS IN THE AGE OF JANE AUSTEN WITH HILARY DAVIDSON
🧵🪡 Leading US-based fashion historian and author Hilary Davidson joins us in Melbourne as part of the NGV Observations series for an exclusive talk on women’s fashion in the Regency era.
Fashion is a cultural archive – whether through one work or an entire wardrobe, we can learn something about life, society, politics, technology, climate and landscape. In early nineteenth-century Britain, clothing reflected sweeping changes in culture, identity and emerging modernity.
Incorporating nearly two decades of historical research, Hilary Davidson will take audiences on a visually rich journey back in time to coincide with the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth celebrated in December 2025 – revealing the social and cultural meanings stitched into seams and silhouettes, and revealing how garments were expressions of broader social and political shifts, both local and global.
📍 Clemenger Auditorium, NGV International
🗓️ Saturday 10 January
⏰ 12–1pm
🎟️ BOOK NOW.
https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/program/hilary-davidson/?utm_medium=advertising&utm_source=self+serve+meta&utm_campaign=programs&utm_content=standard&utm_term=awareness
🧵🪡 ABOUT HILARY DAVIDSON
Dr Hilary Davidson is in Melbourne for the NGV Observations series – NGV’s annual program of events that invites close examination of the NGV Collection, and unlocks its stories through the eyes of international researchers, curators, and writers.
Davidson was a contributor to the NGV’s 2025 publication, Observations: Dress in Art & Design History, available to purchase from the NGV design store. When booking into this event, you can pre-purchase a copy of the book for an additional $49.95, to be collected on the day. Members recieve a 10% discount.
The NGV Observations series is generously supported by an anonymous donor.
🧵🪡 ABOUT OBSERVATIONS
Art and design are windows to the worlds of their creators, times and places. They can pull the past into our present, providing glimpses into different societies, values, and innovations. The NGV series Observations positions the NGV Collection as such a window – offering perspectives on art and design, of the past and the present, to explore how creativity impacts our understanding and experience of the world.
The NGV Observations series was named after the first instructional text on painting believed to have been written by a woman artist, a 1633 manuscript by English artist Mary Beale. Observations invites close examination of works and periods in the NGV Collection, through the eyes of international researchers, curators, and writers. Spanning in person and live-streamed events, as well as publications and online videos, we can not only learn about how art and design is made, but also how it chronicles, reflects and responds to its social and cultural context – and what this might illuminate about life today.
🧵🪡 ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dr Hilary Davidson is Associate Professor and Chair of MA Fashion and Textile Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York. Her books include Dress in the Age of Jane Austen: Regency Fashion (2019), Jane Austen’s Wardrobe (2023) and, most recently, A Guide to Regency Dress (October 2025).
You may also like the following events from National Gallery of Victoria:
- Next Friday, 21st November, 11:30 pm, NGV Art School | One-day Course – 20th Century Design in Melbourne
- Next Saturday, 22nd November, 03:00 am, Art of the Pacific Celebration in Melbourne
- This month, 26th November, 06:30 am, Adventures in Looking: Connecting with Art, Ourselves and Others with Claire Bown in Melbourne
Also check out other
Arts events in Melbourne,
Literary Art events in Melbourne,
Fine Arts events in Melbourne.
