Decoding dress: Unlocking the secrets of fashion in painting
- Thursday, 30 April 2026
- Thursday, 7 May 2026
- Thursday, 14 May 2026
- Thursday, 21 May 2026
- Thursday, 28 May 2026
- Thursday, 4 June 2026
Enrol
| Standard: | £90 |
| Concessions: | £85.50 |
Please book a ticket to access the event. You will receive an E-ticket with instructions on how to access your online events, films and resources via your National Gallery account.
Please note, only one ticket can be booked per account.
Concessions are for full-time students, jobseekers, and disabled adults.
About
From shimmering silks to sober tailoring, discover how clothing in art shaped identity and signalled power, status and identity.
This six-week course explores how clothing forms a visual language in Western European painting, shaping how people presented themselves and how they were seen. From the steady gaze of Giovanni Moroni’s ‘Tailor’ to the elaborate fashions of later centuries, fashion in art tells us endless tales.
Trace the changing silhouette of fashion over time and learn how to recognise different forms of dress, understanding how garments were layered, constructed and worn. As the course unfolds, we’ll consider how artists used dress to communicate profession, gender, power and aspiration, and how an understanding of fashion can help us date paintings and decode their deeper social meanings. We’ll also reflect on the broader role of cloth and clothing in shaping identity and how these visual codes continue to influence the way we read images today.
Led by Jacqui Ansell, the course is enriched by guest speakers offering specialist perspectives. Fashion historian Amber Butchart shares insights from her BBC Radio 4 series 'A Stitch in Time', while Angus Patterson, Curator of Metalwork at the Victoria and Albert Museum, explores the relationship between armour and fashionable dress. Jewellery designer Andrew Prince, known for his work on Downton Abbey, examines the gems, metals and adornments that glimmer across some of the Gallery’s most celebrated paintings.
Decoding dress: Unlocking the secrets of fashion in painting
This introductory session explores why clothing matters in art. We’ll consider the relationship between the dressed and undressed body, the distinction between the ‘naked’ and the ‘nude’, and the cultural meanings attached to covering, revealing and shaping the body. Through close looking at early paintings in the collection, we’ll also examine how artists represented fur, fabric and layered garments, laying the foundations for reading dress as both material object and social signal.
Decoding dress: Unlocking the secrets of fashion in painting
Focusing on the shift from medieval to Renaissance fashion, this session explores how changes in silhouette expressed gender, status and identity. Using works such as Holbein’s 'The Ambassadors', we’ll examine how clothing shaped the body and communicated power, belief and belonging. Guest Speaker Amber Butchart (Writer, Curator and TV presenter) will join us in the second half of the session to discuss sources for dress history, and the ways her work as a fashion historian can inform our understanding of the language of clothes.
Decoding dress: Unlocking the secrets of fashion in painting
This session examines the close relationship between armour and fashionable dress in the Renaissance. We’ll explore how armour followed changing clothing styles, particularly in male portraiture, and how jewellery, hairstyles and cosmetics functioned as forms of adornment and self-fashioning. We will be joined for the second part of this session by guest speaker Angus Patterson (Senior Curator at the V&A specialising in metalwork), whose 2009 publication ‘Proud Lookes and Brave Attire’ examined the relationship between ‘Fashion and Armour in Renaissance Europe’.
Decoding dress: Unlocking the secrets of fashion in painting
Turning to the 17th century, we’ll explore dress across Europe, from Dutch genre scenes to Van Dyck’s court portraits and Velázquez’s Spanish painting. This session focuses on collars, cuffs, hair and fabric as markers of class, national identity and taste, and considers how artists used clothing to animate and structure their compositions.
Decoding dress: Unlocking the secrets of fashion in painting
This session focuses on the defining fashions of the 18th century, including towering wigs and expansive hooped skirts. Through works by Hogarth, Gainsborough, Zoffany and Vigée Le Brun, we’ll explore fashion leadership, display and idealisation and consider how artists balanced contemporary style with the desire for lasting portraiture.
Decoding dress: Unlocking the secrets of fashion in painting
The final session explores dress in 19th-century painting, from the Empire silhouette to crinoline. We’ll consider how changing fashions coincided with new approaches to paint and surface, from Ingres to Manet and the Impressionists. We will be joined after the break by lecturer and designer Andrew Prince who will offer us very valuable information about the gems that adorn Madame Moitessier in her portrait by Ingres, as well as invaluable insights into the ways in which jewellery and adornments in paintings can convey ideas, as well as providing a showcase for wealth and taste.
Your tutor
Jacqui Ansell is a former Education Officer at the National Gallery and has devised and delivered an extensive variety of courses and tours based on the collection for more than 25 years. With an MA in dress history from the Courtauld, she specialises in dating paintings through details of dress for art dealers such as Philip Mould. Formerly a Senior Lecturer at Christie’s Education (and author and tutor of many online courses) she is now a freelancer, lecturing internationally for the Arts Society and the main London galleries. She has authored a specialist essay for the Wallace Collection website on the changing taste for Rococo and others, decoding dress in the work of Reynolds and Fragonard. Her latest publication for Spring 2026 is ‘Fashion’ (National Gallery & Yale), a richly illustrated exploration of fabric, fur, shoes, gloves, jewellery, hats, fans and clothing styles as depicted in National Gallery paintings.
Watch again
Can't make Thursday afternoons but don't want to miss out? No problem, you can watch again.
Each session is recorded and made available to you for the duration of the course, up until 2 weeks after the final session.
A video of the week's lecture will be uploaded and available for you to watch via your National Gallery account on Monday afternoons.
Format
Each session lasts for 2 hours and includes a lecture delivered by the course lecturer followed by a short break and further discussion.
Time will be allowed for questions and discussion via Q&A.
Handouts will be available via your National Gallery account on Tuesday mornings.
Optional homework is provided to help you prepare for the following week's session.
Booking information
This is an online ticketed course hosted on Zoom. Please book a ticket to access the course. Only one ticket can be booked per account.
You will be emailed an E-ticket with instructions on how to access the course via your National Gallery account. All course information including your Zoom link, weekly handouts, and recordings will be available here.
Your link will be valid for the duration of the course.
Booking after the course has started
You are welcome to join the module at any point during its six-week run. You will gain access to all the recordings until two weeks after the final session.