Maggie Mayhan

Isabella Bird: Liminal Performances Maggie Mayhan

If you open an anthology of travel writing¿ particularly women¿s travel writing¿you are bound to find an excerpt by Isabella Bird. However, while Isabella Lucy Bird is much celebrated for traveling the globe, challenging convention, and becoming the first woman to gain admission into the Royal Geographical Society, little attention has been paid to the progression of her costume changes and how her authority over her attire corresponds to her growing authority as a writer and an emboldened explorer. Bird actively uses her dress as a performative space; her clothing descriptions become her ultimate layer of costuming as she both translates and transgresses Victorian standards of femininity in order to package herself as a professional explorer who is also a woman. Although gender boundaries and expectations have changed, gender continues to incite intense conversation, and this work can contribute to discussions on gender performance in writing and costume.