AUTHOR - JOURNALIST - CAMPAIGNER
TESSA BOASE
EVENTS
Find a live or virtual event in 2026-7
Australia Tour – August 2026
I'm incredibly excited to be visiting Australia this August for a month-long lecture tour with ArtsNational. Visitors are welcome – please contact the individual society for booking details.
Wednesday 5 August
Ku-ring-gai, Sydney | 10.30am & 6.00pm
The Housekeeper's Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House
Thursday 6 August
Ku-ring-gai, Sydney | Special Interest Day, 10.30am
A Social History of the High Street and the High Cost of Fashion
Sunday 9 August
Cairns | 2.00pm
Fashion, Feathers and Feminism: Women's Fight for Change
Wednesday 12 August
Geelong | 10.30am
The Housekeeper's Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House
Wednesday 12 August
Geelong | 6.00pm
London's Lost Department Stores
Thursday 13 August
Melbourne | 8.00pm
Fashion, Feathers and Feminism: Women's Fight for Change
Sunday 16 August
Murray River | Special Interest Morning, 10.30am
The Housekeeper's Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House
Monday 17 August
Murray River | 6.30pm
Fashion, Feathers and Feminism
Tuesday 18 August
Canberra | 6.00pm
Fashion, Feathers and Feminism
Wednesday 19 August
Molonglo Plains | Special Interest Morning
The Fabulous World of London's Lost Department Stores
Thursday 20 August
Molonglo Plains | 2.00pm
Art Deco: The Flirty Thirties – Showmen and Shopgirls
Monday 24 August
Fleurieu | 10.30am
London's Lost Department Stores
Wednesday 26 August
Adelaide | 10.30am
Secrets of an Edwardian Shopaholic
Thursday 27 August
Adelaide | 7.30pm
The Housekeeper's Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House
Friday 28 August
Perth | 2.00pm
Fashion, Feathers and Feminism: Women's Fight for Change
&
The Housekeeper's Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House
Monday 31 August
Margaret River l 2.00pm
Fashion, Feathers and Feminism
London's Lost Department Stores
Lecture Details
A chance to step back in time, via fabulous period images, to a vanished era of glamour, confidence and style. We'll tour the West End like an Edwardian 'shopping woman', before heading off to the suburbs, via Gamages toy department, the flamingos in Derry & Toms roof garden and D. H. Evans' pioneering ankle reduction service. Who were the personalities behind these temples of consumption? Which invisible women broke through the glass ceiling? And what happened to middle class shoplifters?
Also... ART DECO & THE DEPARTMENT STORE
Bold publicity stunts, statement architecture, suave dining: the 1930s was a supreme era for London’s great emporia. Starting on Piccadilly with Joseph Emberton’s Moderne masterpiece, Simpsons, we’ll explore the capital’s department stores through an Art Deco lens – from Selfridges’ fabulous elevators, whizzing us up to roof garden fashion shows, to the jaw-dropping interiors of D.H. Evans, ready in time for the 1937 Coronation, to the live flamingos atop Derry & Toms. Then off to the suburbs where superb Deco buildings were springing up in surprising locations: Shinners of Sutton, Holdrons of Peckham, Bodgers of Ilford.
Dates for 2026-7 t/c
Fashion, Fury and Feathers: Women’s Fight for Change
Lecture Details
When Tessa Boase told the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds she wanted to write their early story, they refused to let her visit their archives. To a former investigative journalist, this was a challenge she could not resist . . .
This lecture shines a light on the intriguing story of women’s love affair with plumage – and of the brave eco feminists who fought back on behalf of the birds. Moving from a polite Victorian tea party to an egret hunt in a Florida swamp; from a suffragette ‘monster rally’ to a milliner’s dusty workshop, you’ll be taken back in time to a world where every woman, of every class wore a hat.
Dates 2026-7 t/c
PAST EVENTS
London's Lost Department Stores
16 November 2022, 7.30-9pm, The Wigmore Library, Gillingham ME8 0PX
The Invented Department Stores of London
29 November 2022, 2-3pm
Kensington: an 'Aladdin's Cave of Shopping'
Monday 12 December, 6.30-7.30pm, Kensington Library