A Stitch in Time

Fashion historian Amber Butchart goes in search of Charles II through the clothes he wore and discovers a sartorial innovation he introduced which survives to this day. He is credited with creating the vest and our modern day three-piece-suit. Her quest takes her from an English stately home to the Palace of Versailles where the English king's cousin, Louis XIV, openly mocked his attire.

Van Eyck’s enigmatic Arnolfini portrait offers rich material for debating its meaning. Does the female subject’s voluminous gown indicate that she was pregnant? Amber travels around the country to see the garment’s fabric evolve from raw wool to the finest cloth, and discovers how wool was dyed in the 1400s, using natural ingredients from botanical and bodily sources.

Amber visits Broughton Castle to examine an unusual portrait of an ordinary worker, a hedge cutter. The team then try to recreate the clothing he is shown wearing, which reveals interesting information.

Amber Butchart explores the life of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the illegitimate daughter of Captain John Lindsay and an enslaved African woman who was brought up in the 18th-century at Kenwood House in London.

Six centuries ago, the eldest son of King Edward III-the so-called Black Prince-decreed that on his death, his heraldic surcoat (or jupon) was to be displayed above his effigy in Canterbury Cathedral. Amber Butchart is allowed a once-in-a-lifetime close encounter with this extremely fragile and historically significant garment.

Amber Butchart goes in search of the doomed queen through a scandalous portrait, La Reine en Gaulle which reveals not only Marie-Antoinette's lack of political judgment but also her desire to be released from the formality of court life. Ninya Mikhaila and her team labour to recreate the scandalous gown.