Deborah Miller, Clothing & Accessories, Textiles , Specialty Studies: Clothing, Accessories & Textiles

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Deborah Miller
ISA member since Feb 21, 2020

(413) 262-3503 (Office)

3750 N. Lake Shore Drive
Apt. 9a
Chicago, IL 60613 map

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About

Deborah Miller is an independent appraiser of historic, vintage and contemporary clothing and textiles throughout the United States and Canada. She is an accredited senior appraiser with the American Society of Appraisers (ASA) and an accredited member of the International Society of Appraisers (ISA AM).  Ms. Miller received her M.A. in the History of Decorative Arts and Design from the Bard Graduate Center (2000) and her B.A. from Hamilton College (1989).  In 1997, she was fortunate to have a year of private study with Milton Sonday, the renowned textile scholar and emeritus curator at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, NYC.  Ms. Miller received her Certificate of Appraisal Studies from the Rhode Island School of Design (2008). Since 2009, Ms. Miller has been a textile and costume appraiser on WGBH’s Antiques Roadshow.

Ms. Miller works frequently with donors to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Royal Ontario Museum, The Philadelphia Museum of Art,  Drexel University, Kent State University, Bata Shoe Museum, The Josef & Anni Albers Foundation and Peabody Essex Museum among others.  Ms. Miller has a specialty in 20th and 21^st- c.  fashion & couture, and valued the personal archive of Charles James, America’s first couturier and the subject of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2014 exhibition Charles James: Beyond Fashion.   She also regularly appraises a wide range of textiles from samplers to quilts, as well as fashion designer archives and fashion sketches.

She is working with insurance companies for textile and clothing underwriting as well as damage and loss claims, and is the preferred appraiser for Garde Robe, the industry leader in museum-quality archiving and preservation of designer collections, couture and fashion archives.  She is a member of the Textile Society of America, and the Costume Society of America.  Ms. Miller also assists clients in the capacity of a broker for the dispersal of private clothing and textile collections.  

Ms. Miller's most challenging job to date was as a Peace Corps volunteer (1993-95) in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa where she taught high school english.