How does a country dress itself? From Montreal's 'Retail Mile, ' to Ontario's millinery trade, to how war and television can effect the garment industry or whether tailoring can make a cultural impact, Alexandra Palmer gathers together some of the top curators, designers, fashion writers, historians, and artists in the country to create a truly dynamic and thought-provoking collection of essays.

Controversial and unconventional, Fashion: A Canadian Perspective challenges readers to consider aspects of Canadian identity in terms of what its citizenship has chosen to wear for the last three centuries, and the internal and external influences of those socio-cultural decisions. Covering a broad range of topics -- such as the iconic Hudson Bay Blanket Coats, garment factories of the late 1800s, specific Canadian fashion couturiers whose influences reach international stages, and the contemporary role of fashion journalists and their effect on trends -- this collection breaks new ground in producing multiple perspectives on fashion and fashion dress.

In a country that has given birth to such global fashion corporations as Club Monaco, Roots, and MAC, Fashion: A Canadian Perspective develops the first intriguing and readable historiography that links past to future, couture vision to trade trends, and heritage costuming to FashionTelevision.

Alexandra Palmer is the Nora E. Vaughan Fashion Costume Senior Curator and Chair of the Veronika Gervers Research Fellowship in Textiles & Costume at the ROM, and a Co-curator of BIG, the latest exhibit in the Patricia Harris Gallery of Textiles & Costume. She is cross appointed and teaches in Fine Art History at the University of Toronto, and the Graduate Programme in Art History at York University, and the School of Graduate Studies at Ryerson University.

A Canadian born in Greece and raised in England, Alexandra received her Bachelor of Arts in Art History from the University of Toronto, her M.A. in the History of Costume & Textiles from New York University in conjunction with the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum and her PhD in Design History from the University of Brighton.

Before she came to the ROM in 1997 she was Assistant Professor for Craft and Design History at Nova Scotia College of Art. At the ROM she has curated Measure for Measure  (1989) in the Samuel European Galleries, Au Courant: Contemporary Canadian Fashion (1997) and Papiers à la Mode for  The Institute of Contemporary Culture (2001), as well as Unveiling the Textiles & Costume Collection (spring 2002) , Elite Elegance: Couture in the Feminine Fifties (November 2002- spring 2003) and the exhibits in the Patricia Harris Gallery of Textiles & Costume since it opened in  2007.

Education 

B.A., Art History, University of Toronto, 1979
M.A., History of Costume and Textiles (in conjunction with the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art), New York University, 1981
Ph.D., Design History, University of Brighton, England, 1995

Source: University of Toronto