Coco Chanel, Diana Vreeland, Joshua Reynolds and Alison Goodrum, professor of fashion theory at Nottingham Trent University, England, agree that female equestrian clothing has signaled moments of often radical change throughout history.

Dr. Goodrum, who has just concluded her stay at the National Sporting Library & Museum as a John H. Daniels Fellow, believes that fashion, in general, is a form of non-verbal communication that reflects the society and era in which it is worn.

"I've had the time of my life in Middleburg as a John H. Daniels Fellow," she said emphatically as she began her "In The Pinque" lecture at the Library.

"This fellowship program is one of an increasingly rare number of opportunities to delve deeply into an area of research like mine. I could not be more grateful, or more thankful to all my colleagues here at NSLM for their many, many kindnesses."

The John H. Daniels Fellowship Program supports researchers at the National Sporting Library & Museum, a research center for horse and field sports, for periods of up to one year. Disciplines include history, literature, journalism, art history, anthropology, area studies, and history of sport.

Alison has, just as Vreeland, the famous fashion editor and mythmaker, did, an innate understanding of the extraordinary pace of change in the 20th century.

She helped found 'Fields of Fashion' (FOF), a rural lifestyle research group in the U.K., and actively follows both rural and city-based influences on fashion marketing, the fashion industry and fashion itself.

"In the past few years, rural fashions have had an amazing revival in England and companies like Jack Wills, a fabulously rural British outfitter, could not be more popular now. Brands like Barbour are also very big in the UK."

According to Alison, this past autumn, Savile Row was "grassed over" during National Wool Week so a herd of sheep could stroll unencumbered.

As part of her work with Fields of Fashion, Alison has helped to organize Think Tank events on rural clothing with collaborators such as the Victoria & Albert Museum and she is going back to lead a project that will involve teaching people how to research, archive and exhibit their clothing history.

"Three hundred years ago, fashion influenced riding dress," she continued. "Today the influences are many." In the 1930s, both morality and economics were the major influences on equine dress for women. In her search for the evolution of riding dress for women, Alison found a treasure trove of material at the NSLM. Opinion varied on the appropriate dress for either cross or side saddle riding.

"Marie Antoinette rode both ways," she said. "But she had certain luxuries!"

Lady Worsley, as pictured in Joshua Reynolds' painting of her, wears a beautiful, long, red habit that is patterned on her husband's regiment's colors.

In the early 19th century, Beau Brummell's modern ideas had a major impact. Ladies pared down their riding habits and expected them to reflect the discipline of a sporting body. Cleanliness and grooming became extremely important, as did simplicity of cut, neutral colors and minimal ornament. This was an era when men began wearing long trousers instead of knee breeches and silk stockings.

By 1875, the Safety Skirt, a feat of ingenious engineering, included a patented apron design that easily came off to avoid dragging should the rider fall.

As Vreeland said, "There is nothing haphazard about the equestrian world," and women's dress reflected that perfectly.

By 1920, there is a formal dress code for female riders in the hunting field.

For formal hunting, ladies must have a top hat and veil, a dark habit, a white shirt, buff or canary vest, black boots and yellow gloves.

For informal hunting, ladies should wear a 'ratcatcher' tweed jacket and bowler hat, leaving their horses unplaited.

Soon the Traveling Tailor makes the scene to ensure that the dress code, originating in Britain, is correctly maintained around the world.

Among many other priceless references at the NSLM, Alison delighted in Mrs. Lucy Linn's diary. This record of a real doyenne of fashion from the McCormick family of Chicago, provides an impeccable record of her 1948 hunting trip she took in Ireland. She rode to 13 hunts across Ireland in one month. She was over 60 years old.

"Her descriptions of this trip are fantastic," Alison said.

"She wrote that one mount was so highly spirited that he had to be sedated before mounted, and that, at one hunt, her barren lodging was so cold she warmed her bed with her boiled breakfast egg."

"Women's equestrian dress is a fascinating look into society," Alison explained. "It is a perfect reflection of position, hierarchy and the rituals associated with correct appearance."

"The resources at The Library are truly exceptional, and the books one discovers here offer both instructional and pragmatic discourses."

"For instance, a woman's stock can be used as a bandage in case of accidents. The proper display and discipline of her athletic body requires four or five fittings per riding costume. One's dress reflects one's knowledge of horsemanship. And, according to one manuscript, an attractive girl with a lovely figure looks ravishing in well-made boots and breeches, even more so when riding sidesaddle in her well-cut riding habit."

This pretty and charming Englishwoman believes that the incidental is every bit as much the stuff of history as the exceptional, and she found, to her immense pleasure, plenty of both at the NSLM.

She also said that although it might surprise her audience, she had to dispel the legend of Tailor Pinque from which, many believe, came the identification of red riding habits as "pink."

"There is absolutely no evidence of his existence," she said sadly.

For more information on Dr. Alison Goodrum's work, please visit the Fields of Fashion online exhibition at www.wall5.org.uk