Gale R. Owen-Crocker

President

Gale R. Owen-Crocker is Professor Emerita of the University of Manchester where she was formerly Professor of Anglo-Saxon Culture and Director of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies. With Robin Netherton she founded the annual journal Medieval Clothing and Textiles and co-edited it for 16 years. She is chief editor of the Encyclopedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of the British Isles c. 450-1450 and she directed the Lexis of Cloth and Clothing project which produced the free on-line database http://lexisproject.arts.manchester.ac.uk/ which documents the vocabulary of medieval cloth and clothing in all languages spoken and written in medieval Britain. Her books include Dress in Anglo-Saxon England, Medieval Dress and Textiles in Britain: A Multilingual Sourcebook (with Louise Sylvester and Mark Chambers), Clothing the Past (with Elizabeth Coatsworth) and The Bayeux Tapestry: Collected Papers.

Ninya Mikhaila

Chair

Ninya Mikhaila is a historical costumier and co-author of The Tudor Tailor series of books on reconstructing sixteenth century dress. Her clients include Historic Royal Palaces, The Royal Armouries, The National Trust, English Heritage, The National Archives and Gainsborough’s House. In 2018 Ninya featured in a BBC television series A Stitch in Time, which looks at what reconstructing period clothes can tell us about people in the past.

Linde Merrick

Treasurer and Membership Secretary

Linde Merrick is a long-standing member and former Director/Trustee of The Knitting & Crochet Guild, a Friend of the Royal School of Needlework, and an active member of the Embroiderers’ Guild and the Berkshire Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers. Her wide-ranging interest in these crafts and all textile and fashion topics has been enhanced by her membership of both MEDATS and the Association of Dress Historians, particularly with respect to their coverage of Tudor costume.

Pat Poppy

Newsletter Editor

Pat is an independent researcher and retired academic librarian, with an interest in late medieval and early modern clothing and textiles.  She has an MA in Early Modern English History. She is a member of the Costume Society editorial board, and has published several articles in peer reviewed journals. She is currently working on producing a database of clothing in seventeenth century wills and inventories for a future publication by The Tudor Tailor group.

Heather A. D. Mbaye

Secretary

Dr. Heather A. D. Mbaye is currently Professor in the Department of Civic Engagement and Public Service at the University of West Georgia in the USA. She is Editor of Studies in the Social Sciences, a journal dedicated to open access publishing of socially significant academic work.

Her textile interests lie in European costume and pattern geometry from 1000-1650AD. In particular, she is interested in recreating clothing using period techniques and shapes and in the social implications and meanings of clothing. She is also reenactor, and is Dame Sibella in the Society for Creative Anachronism.

Challe Hudson

Communications Secretary

Challe is an independent researcher interested in late medieval and early modern English fashion. She has a MEd in Science Education with a focus on informal education and museum studies. Over 25 years of experience as a costumed living historian she has researched and recreated clothing from multiple eras, cultures, and social classes for herself, her family, and her friends. She is currently studying the depiction of Tudor women’s fashion preserved on church monuments, effigies and monumental brasses, and is an active member of the Monumental Brass Society and the Church Monuments Society.

Veronica Saenz

Social Media Secretary

Veronica Saenz is interested in how medieval manuscripts and paintings help us to understand historical garments and textiles. She studied History at the University of Cologne in Germany and attended the Cambridge University Summer School course “The Tudor eye: art and architecture in 16th-century England.” She volunteered at the Costume Museum (Het Klederdracht) in Amsterdam, helping to organise the exhibition “Contemporary Fashion.” She currently blogs for Modemuze, a network of Dutch/Flemish museums, and makes 3D holograms at the ELO (Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken) about the archeological and cultural heritage of the city of Leiden.

Elizabeth McMahon

Event Secretary

Elizabeth McMahon is a scholar, couturiere, and a textile artist. She currently works at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, where she writes library guides on fashion, accessories, and textiles topics, and gets students started with their art and clothing history research. She has an Associates in Fashion Design, a Bachelor’s in Fashion Merchandising and worked in the fashion industry for several years before returning to FIT to get her MA in Fashion and Museum Studies. She has spent more than 40 years as a tailor, embroiderer, and fashion historian, with a deep knowledge of textile history from 600-1900 C.E. Her fashion reconstruction research and creation work has a special focus on the clothing worn at the English courts in the 16th Century. She has worked on museum exhibitions and published about English clothing and embroidery. She has taught many workshops for reenactors as well as for the Fashion Studies graduate program at FIT. She is currently working on a PhD dissertation based on the accounts of Henry VII and Henry VIII.