Bernadette Banner

Bernadette Banner (born ) is a New York-based (now England) dress historian and YouTuber who is known for reconstruction and study of clothing, ranging from the early Medieval era to World War I, but primarily on the Victorian era and the Edwardian era. She has focused on the lack of quality in modern fast fashion. She is also known for sewing in Original Practice, the art of crafting clothes using historically-informed methods and materials.
A significant area investigated by Banner has been the accuracy in reproductions of historical clothing, especially in films like "Little Women" (2019) and "Beauty and the Beast" (2017). In addition, she has also been featured by Glamour as commentary for an analysis of "Mary Poppins"' dressing.
In 2019, an incident occurred in which a 15th century-inspired gown Banner made was poorly copied and sold by an online merchant for a fraction of the price of Banner's original, despite the blatant plagiarism of her photograph as sales listing. Banner has since bought the dress and made a public video in which she criticized its poor construction.
On her channel, Banner is an active spokesperson against the fast fashion industry, highlighting its environmental devastation and poor labor practices as reason for people to do what they can to abstain from buying clothes from such brands. In place of consuming fast fashion products, Banner has described her own move towards limiting her number of wardrobe pieces to sustainable and long-lasting garments, many of which she has created herself.
Banner formerly worked as a costume designer for Broadway, and later on a parody preview video of the Broadway musical "Frozen".