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 h
Leslie P. Peirce is an American professor in history. Her research interests include early modern history of the Ottoman Empire, gender, law, and society. She received her B.A. in History from Harvard College, her M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University, and her Ph.D. (1988) in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. In 1988–1998 she was with the Cornell University. In 1998–2006 she was professor in the Departments of History and Near Eastern Studies the University of California, Berkeley. Since 2006 she is with Department of History and the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies of the New York University, where she is the Silver Professor of History.
