I am a dress historian originally from Brighton, UK, and now living in London. I have an educational background in history through my undergraduate degree. For over a decade I have been sewing and drafting my own clothes, most recently venturing into historical costume making. I love vintage clothes, both to wear and use as inspiration for my sewing, and have been collecting vintage and antique garments and sewing patterns, as best I can on a student’s budget, for several years.
My research focuses on seventeenth- to nineteenth-century dress and textiles with an emphasis on using reconstructive and experimental methodologies to access the embodied experiences of making and wearing garments. I am currently researching eighteenth-century jumps in context by examining their production and consumption using this approach in combination with traditional archival and object-based methodologies.
Alongside my current dissertation project, I also work on researching and using nineteenth and early twentieth-century sewing patterns and drafting systems. This has grown out of my initial project of digitising vintage and antique sewing patterns as a means of preserving these delicate tissue paper artefacts. I share this work with mostly those from the sewing and historical costuming communities who are interested not just in the stories, but in how these tools can be used again today. I sell some of the digitised patterns online to fund their preservation under the name Jem Vintage Patterns, as well as writing commissioned articles and running a few online classes teaching about their histories and how to use them.
Contact
Email: jordan.mitchell-king@ntlworld.com
Instagram: @jordanmitchellking and @jemvintagepatterns
Twitter: @jmitchellking