Lucile Ltd: London, Paris, New York and Chicago 1890s-1930s

This is the first monograph on this influential designer whose business practices and creative output were highly innovative. The book comprises a facsimile and critical analysis of an album of hand-painted designs, each with multiple swatches of original fabrics and trimmings attached, for Lucile’s Autumn 1905 collection. The album was situated using primary source material (documents and images) from the V&A’s Lucile Archive. I wrote chapters on ‘The Making, Meaning and Biography of the Album’; a comparative analysis of a surviving gown from Autumn 1905 and its depiction within the Album and documented the period 1914 to 1935

Amy de la Haye

Research Interests

Fashion in the context of the museum
Fashion and dress history 1850 onwards
Material culture/object-based analysis
Women's Land Army

Current Research

I am writing a book, with LCF colleague Judith Clark, on the discipline of curating fashion for Yale University Press. As a trained dress historian and museum curator I will explore history and current practice and Judith, as a qualified architect and exhibition-maker, will focus upon design and installation issues. It centres around the 1971 Cecil Beaton exhibition at the V&A. To be published 1912.

With Valerie D. Mendes, I am writing a book about the archive of the House of Worth, which is housed at the Victoria & Albert Museum. It contains evidence about the couture house’s later, and lesser known, history from the 1890s through to the 1950s and its recent revival.

I would like to develop another curatorial project, possibly on fashion in the Edwardian era.