Stella Mary Newton OBE, née Pearce (17 April 1901, London – 18 May 2001, London) was an English fashion designer and dress historian, who brought the history of fashion to bear on art history and the dating of paintings.
Stella Mary Pearce was the daughter of Georgiana Mary Hoby, a concert pianist, and Henry Pearce, a Manchester bookseller and socialist.
Educated at Withington Girls' School, she then moved to London with her mother and joined Frank Benson's Shakespearean Company to become an actress.
During the war they lectured on art history and design for Cambridge University's extramural department.
In 1965, she founded a new postgraduate course in the History of Dress at the Courtauld Institute of Art,[3] and ran it until 1976.