Zara Kesterton

I am a third-year PhD candidate, supervised by Professor Ulinka Rublack and funded by the Wolfson Foundation. My thesis explores the development of the artificial flower industry in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century France.

My research investigates how consumers and producers engaged with ideas about the natural world, especially new advances in botany, through their clothing. I consider how fashion both reflected and stimulated knowledge exchange in Enlightenment France. I am also interested in the ways in which natural motifs in clothing interacted with the sensory body. I plan to undertake reconstructions of real and artificial flowers in clothing to understand more about the visual, olfactory, and tactile nature of floral accessories worn on the body.

I hold an MLitt degree in Dress and Textile Histories from the University of Glasgow (2022), an MPhil degree in Early Modern History from the University of Cambridge (2020), and a BA (Hons) in English Literature and History from the University of Durham (2019).

Here in Cambridge, I am currently co-convenor of the Long Eighteenth Century postgraduate workshop. I have formerly convened the Material Culture postgraduate workshop, and also served as the administrative co-ordinator for the HSS funded project, the Material Culture Forum. Alongside Susannah Lyon-Whaley (Auckland) and Tori Champion (St Andrew's), I run the international Women and Flowers Research Network.

I am committed to teaching and public engagement. I currently supervise and lecture final-year undergraduates on Paper 14: Material Culture in the Early Modern World. I held the position of editor-in-chief for the blog Doing History in Public in 2022–23. I have also taught English as a foreign language in France, and have worked as a tour guide at Hever Castle and Durham Castle. During the pandemic I worked as an archival research assistant for several academics based in Australia and New Zealand, including Dr Sarah Bendall.