Aileen Ribeiro read History at King’s College, University of London and received a PhD in the History of Dress from The Courtauld Institute of Art. She has been a lecturer in the History of Dress Section since 1973 and professor in the History of Art since 2000. She has written many books and articles on the history of dress, including Fashion and Fiction. Dress in Art and Literature in Stuart England (2005). In addition, she has been a costume consultant to major portrait exhibitions in the UK and US, such as Whistler, Women and Fashion at the Frick Collection, New York (2003). Her main field of research is the history of dress from the seventeenth century to the present day, eighteenth-century masquerades, and Spanish dress as perceived by the English in the early Stuart period.