Patricia Rieff Anawalt was an American anthropologist, author, and museum director.

After she received her PhD she started studying pre-Columbian culture, specifically dress.

Anawalt went on to serve as the curator of costumes and textiles at the UCLA Museum of Cultural History.

She founded the Center for the Study of Regional Dress at the Fowler Museum at UCLA.

[3] Anawalt wrote several books including The Essential Codex Mendoza (co-authored with Frances Berdan, University of California Press, 1997)[4] and The Worldwide History of Dress (Thames & Hudson, 2007).