Bernadette Banner

Bernadette Banner is an American dress historian, YouTuber and author known for recreating and studying historical garments using period techniques. Born on 11 February 1994 in New York City, she trained at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and gained early experience as a costume assistant on Broadway and through an internship with the Tony Award-winning costume designer Jenny Tiramani at the School of Historical Dress in London.

In 2018 she launched a YouTube channel devoted to historical costuming, hand-sewing and “Original Practice” — the craft of making clothes using historically informed methods and materials. Her calm, meticulous videos, which reconstruct fashions ranging from the medieval period through the First World War with an emphasis on the Victorian and Edwardian eras, have drawn a large international audience of close to two million subscribers.

Banner has become one of the most prominent voices in the online historical-costuming community, blending scholarship with practical demonstration and gently challenging fast-fashion culture through an emphasis on hand craftsmanship, mending and garment longevity. Her work has helped popularise dressmaking history for a generation of viewers who first encountered it online.

In 2022 she published her first book, “Make, Sew and Mend: Traditional Techniques to Sustainably Maintain and Repair Your Clothes,” which became a trade-paperback bestseller. She has also spoken publicly about issues such as counterfeiting, after a copy of one of her designs was sold using her own photograph without permission.

Now based in London, Banner has helped bring historical dress and slow, sustainable sewing to a mainstream online audience. Through her videos, writing and public talks she continues to combine rigorous research with accessible, hands-on teaching, making her one of the best-known dress historians of the social-media era and a recognisable advocate for craftsmanship and repair over disposable fashion.

Her channel’s success has also made her a frequent commentator on costume accuracy in film and television, where she analyses the construction and historical plausibility of on-screen wardrobes. That mix of entertainment and education has broadened the appeal of historical dress well beyond specialist circles, and she remains a leading figure in the wider revival of interest in traditional sewing skills.