About

I'm Serena Dyer, the owner and author of Dressing Jane. My interest in historic fashion originated from a desire to wish myself into the world of Jane Austen, so it seemed appropriate to have Jane as the inspiration for my first e-newsletter. I've been researching costume for almost 10 years, and reproducing it for almost as long. The fact that I was the first costumed visitor to the Jane Austen Festival in Bath illustrates that!

Despite the widening of my interests over time, the fashions during the life of Jane Austen remain my passion. In my cupboards of reproductions, it is the regency boxes which are overfilled with gowns, underwear, accessories and bonnets of the era.

I'm on a mission to make every dress from every authentic regency pattern that exists. My copies of Patterns of Fashion 1 and The Cut of Women's Clothes are rather worn out. I've succeded in making five of them now, over half way there!

I'm afraid I'm a slave to authenticity most of the time though, although I will allow myself to slip in my reproductions if I can justify it. For example the tucks on my reproduction of Jane Austen's 1804 dress are a later addition she must have made as the fashions altered.

I can't abide zips though.


Serena Dyer
Pemberley Designs

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