Fashion and botanical knowledge

Fashion is often considered something banal, everyday, ephemeral. But then so has horticulture and gardening, although there is a recognised tradition of studying this most fleeting of art forms. In this lecture, McNeil considers the history of fashion, textiles and what might be called 'horticultural aesthetics', with a focus on 18th and 19th -century west-European fashion.

Peter McNeil is Professor of Fashion Studies at Stockholm University and Professor of Design History at the University of Technology, Sydney.