FutureLearn
A History of Royal Fashion Course - The University of Glasgow

Online, United Kingdom

DEGREE TYPE

Course

LANGUAGES

English

PACE

Part time

Key Summary

About: A History of Royal Fashion is a University of Glasgow course with Historic Royal Palaces. It explores British royal dress over 500 years from the Tudors to the Windsors. You get exclusive access to Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection and study portraits, garments, textiles and archival sources. Over a 5-week course you'll learn to assess the significance of royal clothing, identify key fashion developments, reflect on change, and understand conservation and exhibition practice. Keywords: fashion history, costume, textiles, curation, conservation.

Career Outcomes: Career opportunities could include museum or costume curator, textile conservator, exhibition designer, archivist, fashion historian, researcher or educator.

Explore how British royalty have influenced fashion over the last 500 years, from the Tudors to the Windsors.

Enter the world of British royal fashion and discover its rich history

A History of Royal Fashion welcomes you on a 5-week journey into the wardrobes of British kings and queens. Your fashion history exploration will span across five royal dynasties from the Tudors, Stuarts and Georgians to the Victorians and Windsors.

You’ll receive exclusive access to the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection, and experts at the University of Glasgow and Historic Royal Palaces will invite you to look at a variety of sources that will help you to study the fashion history of British monarchs.

Discover the fashion of the Tudors

Enter the extravagant world of Tudor fashion and learn about how the Tudors used fashion to project power and wealth, how portraits could be used as propaganda and how Henry VIII liked to dress. Observe a real Tudor hat and learn about the dress from the famous Ditchley portrait of Queen Elizabeth I.

Step into the wardrobes of the Stuarts, Georgians and Victorians

Travel back in time to a 17th Century fancy dress party and witness the costumes and glamorous masques of the Stuart period. Then jump forward to the Georgian period and step into court. You’ll experience courtly dress and big wigs before learning about revolutionary fashion during this time.

Learn about Queen Victoria’s wardrobe and the impact of technological advancements in society on the fashion industry. Take a look at royal wedding dresses and discover Victorian fashion for mourning.

Exploring British royal fashion today

End your journey through the royal eras by studying the fashion of the Windsors. Explore how royal fashion developed into a less extravagant display of suits and blazers.

At the end of the course, you’ll learn about how we conserve and display royal fashion and create exhibitions to highlight the ever-changing trends of British monarchs.

What topics will you cover?

Week 1 – Step into the square shoes of the Tudors and see how their lavish clothes were designed to project power, wealth and control.
Week 2 – The Stuarts are centre stage to showcase how they dressed for leisure and influenced new trends through performance in an increasing time of conflict.
Week 3 – Explore the glamorous Georgians, their century of economic and social change, extreme fashions and an era marked by very public and very private monarchs.
Week 4 – Move into the reign of Queen Victoria, her own changing wardrobe and how technological advancements took fashion forwards.
Week 5 – Welcome to the 20th century where the Windsors balance royal fashion with diplomacy and expectations in an era of mass media and celebrity.

When would you like to start?

Most FutureLearn courses run multiple times. Every run of a course has a set start date but you can join it and work through it after it starts.

Date to be announced

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to:

Assess the significance of fashion and clothing to individual and collective British royals.
Identify key fashion developments from the sixteenth century to the present day.
Reflect on how and why fashions have changed.
Explore the significance of different primary sources for understanding fashion history.
Develop an understanding of the history of British monarchs, their family and their reigns.

Who is the course for?

This course is designed for those who have an interest in fashion history and/or the Royals. No prior knowledge is required; all learners are welcome.

Who will you learn with?

Sally Tuckett I am a lecturer in dress and textile histories at the University of Glasgow. I’m a social historian who uses the study of dress and textiles as a way to access the past.	Eleri Lynn I am Curator of the Dress Collection at Historic Royal Palaces, where I look after 10,000 items of royal, court and ceremonial dress in the magical surroundings of Hampton Court Palace	Matthew Storey I'm a collections curator at Historic Royal Palaces. I work with everything from paintings to royal dresses. I'm interested in what the collections can tell us about who made and used them.

Victoria Price I am a senior lecturer in early modern theatre and drama at the University of Glasgow. I'm a theatre historian who examines plays and masques to learn about early modern performance practices.	Claudia Acott Williams I am a Curator at Historic Royal Palaces. I take care of Kensington Palace and its collections, tell stories about the people who lived here and help look after the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection.

Who developed the course?

The University of Glasgow

Founded in 1451, the University of Glasgow is the fourth oldest university in the English-speaking world. It is a member of the prestigious Russell Group of leading UK research universities.

Historic Royal Palaces

Historic Royal Palaces is the independent charity that looks after the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Banqueting House, Kensington Palace, Kew Palace and Hillsborough Castle.