A Guide to Regency Dress: from Corsets and Breeches to Bonnets and Muslins

by Hilary Davidson

Genres: History, Fashion, Nonfiction

248 pages, Hardcover

Published November 11, 2025

About the author

Hilary Davidson is a dress, textiles and fashion historian and curator. Her work encompasses making and knowing, things and theory, with an extraordinary understanding of how historic clothing objects come to be and how they function in culture.

After dropping out of high school to pursue her interests through global travel, Hilary trained as a bespoke shoemaker in her native Australia before completing a Masters in the History of Textiles and Dress at Winchester School of Art (University of Southampton) in 2004. Since graduating, Hilary’s practice has concerned the relationship between theoretical and highly material approaches
to dress history, especially in the early modern and medieval periods. As a skilled and meticulous handsewer, she has created replica clothing projects for a number of museums, including a ground-breaking replication of Jane Austen’s pelisse.At the same time she lectured extensively on fashion history, theory and culture, on semiotics, and cultural mythologies, especially red shoes.

In 2007 Hilary became curator of fashion and decorative arts at the Museum of London. She contributed to the £20 million permanent gallery redevelopment opening in 2010, and curated an exhibition on pirates, while continuing to publish, teach and lecture in the UK and internationally. In collaboration with Museum of London Archaeology, Hilary began analysing archaeological textiles and continues to cross disciplines by consulting for in this area in England and Australia. She also worked on the AHRC 5-star rated Early Modern Dress and Textiles Network (2007-2009) and from 2011 has appeared as an expert on a number of BBC historical television programmes.

Since 2012 Hilary has worked between Sydney and London as a freelance curator, historian, broadcaster, teacher, lecturer, consultant and designer. In addition to historical studies she has been a jewellery designer, graphic designer, photographer, gallerist, and worked in retail fashion and vintage clothing. Current projects include Dress in the Age of Jane Austen (Yale, 2019), and completing a PhD by publication at La Trobe University, Melbourne, on knowledge making and materiality in pre-modern dress (2020).

Hilary has taught and lectured extensively, including at the University of Southampton, Central St Martins, the University of Cambridge, the University of Glasgow, New York University London, The American University Paris, Fashion Design Studio TAFE Sydney and the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), Sydney. She speaks regularly at academic conferences and to the public.

Hilary is an Honorary Associate, School of Arts, Letters and Media, at the University of Sydney, a consultant in historic textiles for the Oxford English Dictionary, a Freeman of the City of London and member of the Company of Arts Scholars, Dealers and Collectors. As Hilary Gilmore, she is a published poet.

Reviews

[Literary Redhead · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hot on the heels of her last stunning book, Jane Austen's Wardrobe, Dr. Davidson proves that no one does this kind of gorgeous, informative, meticulously researched, beautifully organized fashion history book better.

I oohed and aahed over the color illustrations and photos, inhaled the detailed descriptions of men's and women's fashion, marveled at how incredibly useful this glorious book will be for all kinds of readers, and then stood and gave Dr. Davidson a standing ovation.

A must-have for any Janeite and a perfect holiday gift for anyone entranced by Regency fashion and history. Huzzah!

Also, be sure to check out the amazing videos of Dr. Davidson describing her book and showing examples of various Regency dress on Yale University Press's insta page, https://www.instagram.com/yalebooks?i... .

Thanks to Dr. Davidson and Yale University Press for the great privilege of doing this review. Opinions are mine.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really wonderful reference, more of like an illustrated glossary than a book that is meant to be read from front to back (which I did). I can see this being a really useful book to come back to as a reference when reading other works. I learned more about fabric than I ever thought I wanted, but I took a star off because I wish there was more explanation of some of the textile stuff. There is a lot of jargon in that section. But the pictures are awesome, I wish there were more!

[Rhianwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A detailed reference book defining a lot of the dress elements of the regency period.

Best read if you know a bit about regency clothing already, as going into this without any other knowledge might be a bit heavy.

I especially like the sections on jewellery, hair and trimmings, as these aren’t covered well in other books.