Jane Bradbury studied at Tufts University (BA); Sotheby's Works of Art Course, London, and the Institute of Fine Arts, New York (MA). Lectures at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London sparked her lifelong fascination with the links between fashion, culture, and society. This book is the culmination of her long-held ambition to document the collection belonging to her aunt, Augusta Denton Roddis, thereby revealing its stories and making it accessible to the public. The family clothing led her to research her own family history and then American social and fashion history, including aspects of American business practices. Jane inherited the majority of the Roddis Collection upon her Aunt Augusta’s death in 2011, and donated much of it to The Henry Ford of Dearborn, Michigan, in 2014, which will hold an exhibition of the collection entitled American Style and Spirit: 130 Years of Fashions and Lives of an Entrepreneurial Family from November 5, 2016 to April 2, 2017. She lives in London with her husband and two grown sons, and spends part of the year in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

Edward Maeder attended the University of Wisconsin (BA) and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London (MA). A renowned historian, he has held curatorial positions at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He was Director of Exhibitions and Curator of Textiles at Historic Deerfield in the USA and the founding Director of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, Canada. He has organized over 60 exhibitions, written numerous publications, acted as consultant to many renowned institutions in the USA and abroad, and lectured on costumes, textiles, conservation and collections in 36 US states and 18 foreign countries. Edward became the curator of the Roddis Dress Collection in 2011 and unearthed much information about the garments, wearers, and designers thanks to his in-depth research and Holmes-like sleuthing. Edward is also a skilled pattern maker, textile artist, and conservator. He restored several of the dresses in the collection, two of them for Miss Roddis herself. He was born only 17 miles from the Roddis home in Wisconsin and now lives in Greenfield, Massachusetts.

For additional books by Edward Maeder, click here +

Hollywood Costume, ed. Deborah Nadoolman Landis (with an essay by Edward Maeder), Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2012

Modes en mirior, La France et le Holland au temps des Lumieres, essay by Edward Maeder, with Z. Egler and P. Gorguet Balleteros, Palais Galliera, Musée de la mode de la Ville de Paris, 2005

Salvatore Ferragamo: The Art of the Shoe 1898–1960, Stefania Ricci (with an essay by Edward Maeder), Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 1992

The Sistine Chapel: A Glorious Restoration Carlo Pietrangeli, Edward Maeder et al., Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1994

Hollywood and History: Costume Design in Film, Edward Maeder et al., Los Angeles County Museum of Art in association with Thames and Hudson, London, 1987

An Elegant Art: Fashion & Fantasy in the Eighteenth Century, Edward Maeder et al., Los Angeles County Museum of Art in association with Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1983

Art of the Embroiderer, Charles Germain de Saint-Aubin (1721–1786) [1770] trans. Nikki Scheuer, ed. Edward Maeder, Los Angles County Museum of Art in association with David Godine, Boston, 1983

Valerie Steele is director and chief curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, where she has organized more than 20 exhibitions since 1997, including Shoe Obsession (2013), Daphne Guinness (2011), Gothic: Dark Glamour (2008); Love & War: The Weaponized Woman (2006); London Fashion (2002), and The Corset (2000). She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture, and is a prolific author, combining serious scholarship (and a Yale PhD) with a rare ability to communicate with general audiences. Dr. Steele has written and co-authored more than a dozen books, and was described in The Washington Post as one of “fashion’s brainiest women.” She has been listed in the New York Daily News “Fashion’s 50 Most Powerful.” For more information about Valerie Steele, please visit her website: valeriesteelefashion.com

Additional forwards are by Patricia Mooradian, President of The Henry Ford, and Jeanine Head Miller, Curator of Domestic Life of The Henry Ford. For information about The Henry Ford, please visit the museum website: thehenryford.org