C. Willett Cunnington (1878–1961)

Together with his wife Phillis, also a physician, whom he married in 1918, they wrote five Handbooks on English Costume along with many other titles, all published between 1951 and 1960.The Cunningtons’ famous handbooks mapped the development of styles of male and female dress. Each volume was illustrated with quotes from novels and newspapers of the period in question, and was illustrated by small line drawings as well as photographs of paintings. This approach paralleled and extended the work of German and French dress historians of the period as Oskar Fischel, Max von Boehn, and Maurice Leloir.

C. W. Cunnington’s medical training influenced his primary interest, which was the psychological motives that he considered responsible for changes in women’s dress styles in the late nineteenth century. His interest in the psychosexual functions of women’s dress had been enhanced by the 1930 publication of the psychiatrist John Carl Flügel’s study, The Psychology of Clothes.While C. W. Cunnington’s more theoretical comments have not withstood the passage of time, the handbooks he co-authored with his wife as well as Phillis Cunnington’s own work still offer a carefully compiled and useful introduction to the history of English costume. Publishing and collecting through the 1930s to the 1970s, at a time when fashion history still had no academic status and very little standing in museums, the Cunningtons educated the next generation of dress historians and curators who professionalized the field.