Bernadette Banner is a fashion historian living in London, England (formerly residing in New York City), specializing in pre-20th century fashions, creating garments as they would have been made back in the day and reviewing historical fashion in media.
Her YouTube channel can be found here
, and her Instagram page can be found here
Compare Karolina Żebrowska and Vasi Birchwood.
Bernadette's videos are crafted to contain examples of the following tropes:
- A Girl And Her X: Bernadette owned a guinea pig named Cesario who made appearances in her videos. Cesario (aka "His Lordship"), passed on in May 2022, and she now owns a pair of rescue guinea pigs called Minerva and Lyra. Her Sibling paints historical costume portraits of the guinea pigs for Bernadette's birthday each year.
- Alliterative Name: Bernadette Banner.
- Author Appeal: In her handcrafted wardrobe, Bernadette seems to have a fondness for tartans and anything red.
- Berserk Button: In "Ranking Every 2023 Historical Drama for Costume Accuracy", Bernadette says "Wearing corsets without a chemise makes my blood boil."
- Big Applesauce: Bernadette previously lived in New York City. One of her videos chronicles her visit to the garment district.
- Born in the Wrong Century: Discussed. It’s rare to see Bernadette use a sewing machine for her projects, much less a modern one and she wears a vintage inspired wardrobe. Meanwhile she’s quite aware that history is full in inequality and has mentioned and done an entire video addressing the Vintage Fashion not Vintage Values mindset of the history bounding crowd.
- Costume Porn: With her experience working as a costume assistant on Broadway, the clothes that Bernadette makes aren’t so much costumes as they are garments made for historical research, but the same idea applies.
- Crossover:
- Her good friend and fellow fashion historian and seamstress Cathy Hay has made a few appearances on her channel.
- Morgan Donner and Rachel Maksy have joined Bernadette in Boston for a discussion and in depth analysis on their unique styles of dress.
- Her good friend and fellow fashion historian and seamstress Cathy Hay
- Cute Bookworm: Eagle eyed viewers will note that Bernadette has a noticeable supply of books. They’re not just books on sewing and fashion through the ages, but she’s a fan of Rick Riordan and Emily Dickinson.
- Everybody Hates Math: Bernadette complains that pattern drafting involves “an unreasonable amount of math.”
- Fangirl: Bernadette has stated that she’s “trash” for all things Sherlock Holmes, Janet Arnold, and Mrs. Crocombe.
- Fanservice: Played for laughs in this video, in which Bernadette sets up an OnlyFans account for "saucy Victorian ankle pics."Bernadette: I woke up today and chose depravity.
- Hollywood Costuming:
- Averted with her own creations, but Bernadette is so well versed in historical fashion that Glamour Magazine brought her in to fact checkthe costumes for Mary Poppins.
- Likewise, she’ll also point out differences between historically accurate garments and the way they’re portrayed in fiction. For example, Bernadette mentions that women typically wore chemises under corsets — both because they’re easier to launder, and in order to protect the skin from the corset — but Hollywood typically overlooks that detail because fanservice.
- Averted with her own creations, but Bernadette is so well versed in historical fashion that Glamour Magazine brought her in to fact check
- Insistent Terminology: For all of her sewing skills, Bernadette insists that she’s not a seamstress or tailor (at least in the traditional sense) or even a fashion designer, but a fashion historian.
- Just Here for Godzilla: Bernadette says that she doesn't like Jane Austen, but still watched Emma. (2020) twice, because she liked the clothes so much.
- Kill It with Fire: To test the fiber content of the mass produced rip off of her medieval dress, Bernadette took a swatch of the dress and set it on fire. The way it melted indicated the fiber content was mostly polyester.
- Of Corset Hurts: Averted. One of the biggest myths that Bernadette debunks is that when measured to fit and laced correctly, corsets aren’t supposed to hurt when worn. She further proves this point in the two-part video where she designs and makes a corset for herself. Two of her mockups put pressure on her spine and are extremely painful for her, but the final version, which overcomes the fit problems, is "perfectly comfortable".
- Renaissance Fair: "Remember when renaissance faires were a thing?" is a video made during 2020's COVID pandemic lockdown, reminiscing about being able to gather in large groups with video from the previous year's New York faire.
- Shown Their Work: Bernadette goes to great lengths to make each new garment as historically accurate as possible, down to the smallest details.
- Sibling Team: Bernadette and her sibling collaborated by bringing Jacques-Louis David’s Portrait of a Young Woman in White to life. Bernadette sewed the outfit and took the pictures, and her sibling did the posing.
- Sophisticated as Hell: Bernadette often combines Antiquated Linguistics with modern slang, but her Take That! videos towards a mass produced rip off of her medieval dress and correcting costumes from Party City really take the cake.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: The best way to describe Bernadette's accent is that she's "speaking in cursive."
- Textile Work Is Feminine: Bernadette, naturally.
