Interwoven

Ana Cabrera Lafuente has been curator at the Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas in Madrid since 2002. In 2016, she was awarded a 2-year Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship at the V&A. She was Coordinator at the Spanish museum on the European project ARTSENSE (Testing Augmented Reality in a Museum Environment); and member of several Spanish and European I+D research projects on Late Antiquity and Medieval textiles. She was the curator of the exhibition Alfombras y tejidos del Museo del La Alhambra (1997) and has worked as an exhibition coordinator at the State Society for the Commemorations of Charles V and Phillip II (1997 – 2000). One of the focal points of her Fellowship is the investigation of the impact of the aims and mission of the V&A in Spain, in particular with regard to the similarities between the collecting of decorative arts and their role in the education of artists and designers. Her case study is based on the history of the textile collections. Her findings will inform the V&A's online catalogue and Collections Management System. They will also be publicised in the Museum, on its web page and through a dedicated blog. She has authored three books, several book chapters and articles about Museum documentation, the history of the Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas, and textiles. Read less

Lesley Miller has been Senior Curator of Textiles and Fashion at the V&A since 2005 and was Lead Curator for the redevelopment of its Europe 1600 – 1815 decorative art and design galleries between 2010 and 2015. Since 2013, she has held a 0.2 professorial post in the History of Dress and Textiles at the University of Glasgow. She is a Member of the Pasold Fund for Research in Textile History and a Vice-president of CIETA; she sits on the Editorial Board of Textile History and regularly peer reviews academic book proposals, articles and grant applications. She was the Principal Investigator at the V&A for the HERA-funded project Fashioning the Early Modern: Creativity and Innovation in Europe, 1500 – 1800 (2010 – 2013), during which she line-managed the project's French postdoctoral researcher. Prior to joining the V&A, she taught in Higher Education for 20 years, at Brighton University (1983 – 1988), Staffordshire University (1988 – 1991) and Winchester School of Art (which became part of Southampton University in 1996). She collaborated in establishing the MA in the History of Textiles and Dress at Winchester School of Art and was its first Course Leader (1992 – 2000), before becoming Course Leader for the BA History of Art and Design (2000 – 2002) and then Head of the Division of History of Art and Design (2002 – 2005). She has taught textile history across a wide range of undergraduate and post-graduate courses; practice-based textiles and fashion, textile conservation, history of art and design, the common thread being the ambition to engage students in the systematic analysis and interpretation of objects and archives. She has supervised numerous postgraduate degrees to completion, and has acted as external examiner for MAs and PhDs in dress history. Her own research and publications focus on the early modern period, in particular on design and commerce in 18th century silk manufacturing in France, including 'Selling Silks: A merchant's sample book of 1764' (V&A, 2014). She has also published a monograph on the Spanish couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga (1895 – 1972) (1993), which was revised and expanded in 2007, and most recently as 'Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion' (V&A, 2017). Read less

"Juan de la Cierva – Formación" Researcher, Instituto de Estudios Medievales, Universidad de León Francisco de Asís García García holds a PhD in History of Art from the Complutense University of Madrid (2016) and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of León. His main area of research is the artistic culture of the Romanesque period in Spain, with a special focus on sculpture and iconography. He has developed research stays in Poitiers (CESCM) and Paris (GAHOM and INHA) and has participated in several Spanish I+D research projects on medieval art. Between March and May 2017 he enjoyed an Erasmus + Fellowship at the Victoria and Albert Museum to join the project Interwoven for the study of medieval textiles and ecclesiastical vestments related to the Iberian Peninsula, as well as an ARTES Coll y Cortés scholarship to fund research for the same project. Read less