Lesley E. Miller is senior curator of Textiles and Dress (before 1800), in the Furniture, Textiles and Fashion Department at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Before joining the V&A in 2005, she taught Dress and Textile History and was latterly Head of Division in History of Art & Design at the University of Southampton in Winchester. Miller took her first degree in Hispanic Studies at the University of Glasgow, studied History of Dress at the Courtauld Institute, and received a PhD from Brighton Polytechnic (now University). Subsequently, she taught Design History at several British universities. A specialist in early modern textiles and fashion, she focuses in particular on aspects of design and commerce in the eighteenth-century French silk industry.