Catherine Kovesi

Catherine Kovesi is an historian at the University of Melbourne with a research focus on debates surrounding luxury consumption in early modern Italy to the present. She has published widely on sumptuary law and, from 2013–15, was a partner of the Leverhulme Trust International Luxury Network. She is Chair of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies and serves on the editorial board of Brepols’ ‘Early Modern Europe’ series. She is co-editing Bloomsbury’s forthcoming six volume A Cultural History of Luxury and has recently been appointed to the Advisory Board of Alto Artigianato Venezia - a new association of high-level artisanal producers in Venice.

Catherine is also a contributor to the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies’ project, Textiles, Trade, and Meaning at the courts of northern Italy during the time of Isabella d’Este. You can read more about the project here.

Profile image: Hungarian doll with porcelain face and heart with Matyó folk embroidery. Photo credit: Catherine Kovesi. 

Relevant Publications

Kovesi, C. and L. Johnson, ‘Mammoth Tusk Beads and Vintage Elephant Skin Bags: Wildlife, Conservation, and Rethinking Ethical Fashion’, Fashion Theory, 24.7 (2020): 983-1011 (published online 14 August 2019). 

Kovesi, C. ‘Defending the Right to Dress: Two Sumptuary Law Protests in Sixteenth-Century Milan.’ In Giorgio Riello and Ulinka Rublack (eds). The Right to Dress: Sumptuary Laws in a Comparative and Global Perspective, 1200-1800, 186-209. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. 

Kovesi, C. (ed). Luxury and the Ethics of Greed in Early Modern Italy. Turnhout: Brepols, 2018. 

Kovesi, C. ‘Luxury and the Ethics of Greed in Early Modern Italy: An Introduction’. In C. Kovesi (ed). Luxury and the Ethics of Greed in Early Modern Italy. xv-xxvii. Turnhout: Brepols, 2018. 

Kovesi, C. ‘Luxus: How Luxury Acquired its Lustre’. In C. Kovesi (ed). Luxury and the Ethics of Greed in Early Modern Italy, 3-20. Turnhout: Brepols, 2018. 

Kovesi, C. ‘The Aura of Luxury: Cultivating the Believing Faithful from the Age of Saints to the Age of Luxury Brands.’ Luxury: History, Culture, Consumption, 3.1-2 (2016): 105-122.  

Kovesi, C. ‘Brought to Heel: A Short History of Failed Attempts to Bring Down the High Heeled Shoe in Venice and Beyond.’ Vestoj: The Journal of Sartorial Matters, Issue 6: Special Edition ‘On Failure’ (2015): 65-70.   

Kovesi, C. ‘What is Luxury? The Rebirth of a Concept in the Early Modern World.’ Luxury: History, Culture, Consumption, 2.1 (2015): 25-40. 

Kovesi Killerby, C. ‘“Heralds of a Well-Instructed Mind”: Nicolosa Sanuti’s Defence of Women and their Clothes.’ Renaissance Studies, 13.3 (1999): 255-282.  

Kovesi, C. ‘Women and Sumptuary Law’. In Peter McNeil (ed.). Fashion: Critical and Primary Sources. 4 vols. Vol. 1: 110-29. London: Berg Publishers, 2009.  Translated into Chinese by Cui Jinxia:  C.Kovesi. “Funü he jinshe faling”, Yishu sheji yanjiu (Art & Design Research), 4 (Winter 2013): 10-19.  

Kovesi, C. ‘Regulating Consumption and Ritual Behaviour’. In F. Andrews, K.L. Jansen, and J. Drell (eds). A Medieval Reader. 189-195. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 2009.