Meet our staff

Dr Helen Walter

Course Leader – MA Historical CostumePhD (RCA/V&A), PGCAP, MA (Cantab), MA (Courtauld), FHEA
Email me: hwalter@aub.ac.uk

Overview

Helen is a costume and visual historian with a special interest in theatre costume and portraiture, having worked in running wardrobe for several years after her BA. Her research has been focused on the intersection of performance, identity and the body in portraits of late 19th century actor-managers, and the problematic role of costume in narratives about authenticity in the same period. She has published articles on these topics in Visual Culture in Britain, Studies in Costume and Performance, Costume, and contributed a chapter to Pantouvaki and McNeil's Performance Costume: New Perspectives and Methods (2020). She is also Chair of Trustees at the Blandford Fashion Museum and as a fashion historian is a regular contributor to BBC Radio Arts & Culture slots.

At AUB, she teaches on MA Historical Costume and also supervises on the MRes Arts programme. In the past, she has taught Art and Design History courses for the University of the Creative Arts, the Courtauld Institute, Plymouth University, New York University (NYU) London, and Lawrence University's London Centre, and has experience of both the British and American academic context. Her specialism is working with practice-based students to develop contextual and theoretical research projects.

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Contact:

Name: Dr Helen Walter she/her
Email: hwalter@aub.ac.uk

Qualifications

Qualifications

  • PhD, History of Design (Royal College of Art/Victoria and Albert Museum)
  • MA History of Dress (Courtauld Institute of Art)
  • MA (Cantab) (Christ's College, University of Cambridge)
  • BA (Hons) Classics (Christ's College, University of Cambridge)

Teaching Qualification

  • PGCAP, Plymouth University

Teaching

I teach on the MA in Historical Costume and also supervise on the MRes Arts programme.

I have previously taught:

  • BA (Hons) 3D Design at Plymouth University
  • Portraiture (Visiting Tutor, BA) at the Courtauld Institute of Art
  • British Art in London, and History of British Fashion at New York University (NYU) London
  • 19th Century Art, Design and Society, and Contemporary Art in London at Lawrence University
  • Fashion Journalism and Fashion (BA) at University for the Creative Arts

Courses

Research

Research Interests and Projects

Publications

  • 2021: "On and Off the Stage”: Costume, Dress, and Locating the Actor-Manager’s Identity, chapter in an edited volume, Costume Methodologies, for publication by Bloomsbury Academic.
  • 2017: A Footnote in History: Irving’s 1876 Othello, published in Studies in Costume and Performance.
  • Autumn 2015: Artist, Professional, Gentleman: The actor's offstage portrait (1875-1895), published in Visual Culture in Britain.
  • June 2013: "Van Dyck in Action”: Dressing Charles I for the Victorian Stage, published in Costume.
  • 2012: Cartes de visite: dress and male self-fashioning in late-19th century photography, published in Endymatologica, based on a paper delivered at the Hellenic Costume Society conference, 2010, Athens.

Unpublished Conference Papers

  • March 2015: Balancing Artists and Professionals: Photographs of actors in The Theatre, 1880-1890, at Fashioning Professionals, Symposium on the historical and contemporary representation of cultural and creative professions, V&A Museum, London.
  • April 2013: Artist, Professional, Gentleman: The actor's offstage portrait (1875-1900), at Association of Art Historians Annual Conference, University of Reading.
  • July 2012: Whose costume is it anyway? Studying historic stage dress, at Relays and Responses: Dress Histories in the Round, Association of Dress Historians Conference, Art Workers’ Guild, London.
  • September 2011: Staging Difference: Orientalising Othello in Late Victorian Theatre, at East Meets West, ICOM Costume Committee Annual Meeting, Belgrade
  • September 2010: “Putting Himself Off With His Clothes”: Dress and the body of the actor, at Fashion: Exploring Critical Issues, Interdisciplinary.net Conference, Oriel College, Oxford.

Research Supervision

Helen is interested in receiving applications from PhD students who wish to consider historical costume in a theatrical or heritage context. These could be students wishing to completee a PhD by either a practice-based or thesis route.

Memberships

Advance HE Membership

  • Fellow (FHEA)

Professional Memberships

  • Costume Society of Great Britain