Susan North is Senior Curator in the V&A Fashion, Textiles and Furniture Department. Jenny Tiramani, Luca Costigliolo, Claire Thornton, Armelle Lucas and Christine Prentis, who produced the patterns for the book, were all members of the wardrobe team at Shakespeare's Globe between 1999 and 2005, where they researched and reconstructed Elizabethan and Jacobean clothing for Globe theatre productions. They are all founder members of The School of Historical Dress, a new venture established in 2010 to teach a practical object-based approach to the subject.