Hello again, dear readers! This year, we’ve begun a blog series highlighting Austen-lovers around the world—sharing how they first discovered Austen’s fiction, why they love Austen, how they’ve contributed to the Janeite community, you get the picture. Fans, who cultivate and engage in discourse surrounding Austen’s life and fiction, participate in workshops and conventions, host book clubs, and don I ❤️ Darcy merchandise with pride (but hopefully not prejudice—wink, wink), are the reason Jane’s spirit survives in the twenty-first century. We deserve a shout-out! And we deserve the chance to connect with like-minded individuals across the world. This week’s Spotlight features Tiffany Gayle, an out-of-this-world seamstress bringing our wildest Regency fashion fantasies to life.
Born and raised in the great state of Texas, Tiffany Gayle learned to sew before she was ten years old. With her mother and grandmother’s help, she fell in love with the art of designing beautiful clothes and bringing them to life with a needle and thread. Later, her passion for fashion evolved into a side hustle for extra cash throughout high school and college, where she majored in English literature. Nearly thirty years and one Jane Austen-obsession later, Tiffany began Stitchin’ Addiction, her personal line of historical (and literary!) fashion.
It all started when Tiffany was in her early twenties, listening to Pride and Prejudice on audiobook while driving to and from work. She liked the story well enough then but didn’t think much of it until 2005, when Joe Wright’s film adaptation hit theaters and millions of viewers—including Tiffany—fell head-over-heels in love with Darcy and Elizabeth. Tiffany also fell in love with Elizabeth Bennet as a character, admiring the ways she challenged her mother’s expectations and broke social conventions as a woman throughout the story. As someone who could relate, Tiffany appreciated Elizabeth’s strong spirit.
“As women, we’re just told to shut up and be nice,” Tiffany says. “Be quiet. Be sweet.” But Elizabeth Bennet doesn’t do that; she sticks to her guns about marriage and love, refusing to compromise her values for an unsatisfactory match. In fact, Tiffany adds, a large part of the reason Lizzy is so upset when she learns of Charlotte’s engagement to Mr. Collins is her disappointment in realizing her best friend and “kindred spirit” was selling out, marrying for security rather than love.
About eight years ago, give or take a few, Tiffany began branching out to Austen’s other works, too. Now, she has read all the major novels, as well as Sanditon and Cassandra and Jane’s collected letters. Alongside Austen’s depiction of strong female characters, Tiffany loves the recurring themes of sisterhood and female friendship that appear throughout her body of work.
Her love of Austen’s work led to the creation of Stitchin’ Addiction in its current iteration, which Tiffany launched right before Covid-19 hit the U.S. in 2020. Most of her orders are for Regency clothes, and they are often commissioned from Austen fans around the globe. Even in non-Austenian settings, the Regency era is a common theme for community and private events. Through her involvement with the local costumer’s guild and broader online historical costuming community, Tiffany is able to connect with countless individuals seeking historically accurate costumes.
“The act of creativity has always been relaxing,” Tiffany says when asked to describe her passion for Austen-inspired costuming. “It relieves stress,” but it’s also “just a form of art for me, to be able to … analyze [Austen’s works] and then I look at the characterization and use that as a jumping-off point to design dresses that I believe specific characters would have worn.”
For several years now, Tiffany has presented her designs to the Janeite community through VirtualJaneCon, Bianca Hernandez-Knight’s free online convention open to fans around the world. In 2021, she presented her design for “Elizabeth Bennet’s Walking Dress,” developed through extensive historical research, including fashion trends and financial factors, to determine the style, materials, and fit of the dress. In 2022, she starred in a YouTube video on Regency mourning traditions and what Cassandra Austen might have worn to mourn her dear sister’s passing, and in 2023 she co-starred in another video with Vintage Guidebook on sisterhood in Jane Austen’s life and writings. Check out all of these videos and more on Tiffany’s YouTube channel!
She enjoys meeting people who’ve bought her dresses in-person at themed events and reaching out to other members of the Janeite community via Facebook and Instagram. “It’s amazing how many costumers are out there and how easy it is to build relationships with different people,” she says. Tiffany’s love for Austen has also proven itself to be a fun way of finding common ground with people already in her life—such as her husband, whose love of the undead led them to bond over Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, or her Gossip Girl-loving sister with whom she has conducted several Bridgerton-themed photo shoots.
Looking forward, Tiffany is excited to plan her upcoming trip to Jane Austen’s England, where she will also explore historical literary sites related to Beatrix Potter and Charles Dickens. This will be her second literary pilgrimage, following a trip last summer to see Louisa May Alcott’s house in Concord, Massachusetts.
In the meantime, she has a very special message for our readers: “Come join us in Austen-land! It’s a fun community to be a part of.”
Excerpted from Zoom interview with Tiffany Gayle, March 15, 2024.
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