Artistic Dress at Liberty & Co: The Early Years, Anna Buruma

Artistic Dress at Liberty & Co: The Early Years charts a pivotal moment in fashion history, when Liberty’s dress department emerged in 1884 under the aesthetic vision of Edward William Godwin to reshape women's clothing. Rejecting the corseted stiffness and flashy ornamentation of mainstream Victorian dress, the garments embraced draped silks, muted natural dyes, Greek- and Roman‑inspired evening gowns, and embroidered tea‑gowns—garments that offered both freedom and subtle elegance to women seeking artistic expression and comfort.

Through previously unpublished pattern books, seldom-seen archival artefacts, and 281 colour and black-and-white illustrations, Buruma weaves a narrative of Liberty not just as a fabric merchant, but as the crucible of artistic dress and precursor to English Art Nouveau. Her analysis situates loose-fitting Aesthetic fashion within broader social shifts—women’s fight for bodily autonomy, design reform, and cross-cultural exchanges in textiles imported from Asia and the Middle East. The result: a richly textured retelling of Liberty’s role in both dressing and defining a new era of modern style.

About the Author
Anna Buruma trained as a theatre and costume designer before pivoting to fashion history with an MA from the Courtauld Institute. From 1996 to 2022, she curated and catalogued the Liberty textile archive, later serving as part-time curator at Central Saint Martins. Her dual experience as maker and archivist gives this volume rare insider depth—combining scholarly rigour with material insight.

Publication date: 2025
Publisher: Yale University Press
Pages: 240
ISBN: 9780300274301

Meet the Author at Selvedge Book Festival
We warmly invite you to join us for Text and Textiles—a special event hosted during London Textile Month, celebrating the written word and woven thread in equal measure. With a programme curated by leading voices in textiles and literature, including the author of this very book, the event promises rich conversation and quiet revelation. It is a rare opportunity to gather with kindred spirits and explore the narratives that cloth can carry. Find out more here.