• Dr. Frances Corner

    • Dr. Frances Corner

    • Head of College, London College of Fashion

    • Role: Management Board
    • Email: f.corner@fashion.arts.ac.uk
    • Statement:
      Dr Frances Corner has been Head of College at London College of Fashion since October 2005. She was previously Head of the Sir John Cass Department of Art, Media and Design at London Metropolitan University and has over 20 years experience within the Higher Education sector on both a national and international level.

      Frances Corner believes London College of Fashion's dedication to widening participation and commitment to research and employability, combined with its links with the associated industries, make it a strong model for 21st century Higher Education. Frances aims for the College to become the global leader in fashion related education, research and consultancy and has recently pioneered the adoption of sustainable and ethical practice into the fashion education curriculum. Frances has spoken at a number of high profile and international conferences on this subject.

      Frances is currently Chair of CHEAD with a special interest in social inclusion and employability research in art, media and design. Her own research projects have examined issues such as lifelong learning, employability and skills as well as teaching and learning methods, whilst her professional experience includes work for a number of bodies supporting the creative and cultural industries.

    • Professor Caroline Evans

    • Professor Caroline Evans

    • Professor of Fashion History and Theory, Central Saint Martins

    • Role: Management Board, Members
    • Email: c.evans@csm.arts.ac.uk
    • Website: http://FashioninFilm.com
    • Interest: Twentieth century and contemporary fashion, art, photography and film; Visual culture and its relation both to broader cultural histories and to the visualization of knowledge; Theories of gender, identity and spectatorship; Masquerade
    • Statement:
      I am currently researching a book on the earliest fashion shows in Paris and New York, c.1885 – 1929, with the support of a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship running from October 2007 to September 2010. In this project I argue that early fashion shows were a key constituent of modernism. This is not, however, the modernism of the avant garde but that of the social and economic rationalisation of the body in the early Twentieth century. My research spans a range of discourses of the body, both progressive and reactionary, including business, management, fashion, art and architecture. Drawing equally on economic, cultural and intellectual history, I explore the ways in which the styling and scenography of early fashion shows made standardisation in modernist production visible and intelligible in the spheres of culture and consumption; in particular, I link the fashion show to Taylorist management techniques in the workplace and to Fordist aesthetics in art and design.

      Two strands from this research that I plan to develop further in other forms or media are: pattern-making and repetition; and the relationship of fashion to stage magic.

      In addition, I will be working on a film programme on the fashion show planned for 2010 with the Fashion in Film Festival (see FashioninFilm.com).


      View publication(s):
      - Jean Patou’s American Mannequins: Early Fashion Shows a...
      - The House of Viktor & Rolf
      - Le defile de mode au debut du xxieme siecle: esthetique...
      - Fashion and Modernity
      - Hussein Chalayan
      - The London Look: Fashion from Street to Catwalk
      - Fashion at the Edge: Spectacle, Modernity and Deathline...
    • Alistair O'Neill

    • Alistair O'Neill

    • Senior Research Fellow, Central Saint Martins

    • Role: Directors, Management Board
    • Email: a.o-neill@csm.arts.ac.uk
    • Interest: Fashion; Curation; Visual Culture; Twentieth Century London; Photography; Archives
    • Statement:
      My research as a writer and as a curator deals with the representation of metropolitan fashion cultures, the role of the archive and the medium of photography. London- after a fashion (Reaktion Books, 2007) is my first publication which considers the relationship between fashion and modernity in twentieth century London. I also have an interest in men’s clothing, so I am working on a book concerning the career of Savile Row tailor Tommy Nutter as a form of cultural biography informed by oral history, dress history and collecting.

      View project(s):
      - Fashion Lives
      - Wolf Suschitzky: Charing Cross Road in the 1930s

      View publication(s):
      - London: After a Fashion
      - Imaging Fashion
    • Anne Smith

    • Anne Smith

    • Dean of Fashion and Textiles, Central Saint Martins

    • Role: Management Board
    • Email: a.e.smith@csm.arts.ac.uk
    • Interest: Laser cutting and etching; Textile Design; Fashion, Interior and Accessories Fabrics; Innovation and Enterprise
    • Statement:
      With ten years experience of researching into the aesthetic and commercial viability of the application of laser cutting and marking technologies my aim is to create decorative effects in fashion and furnishing fabrics without the use of environmentally damaging dyes or printing inks.
      I have built up an extensive database and sample library of laser cut and marked materials, cataloguing fibre content and performance characteristics, and have developed fabrics and surfaces for fashion, accessories and interior contexts with a range of collaborators.


      View project(s):
      - Laser cut designs for interior and fashion
      - Unify - Laser Cut Lighting Designs
      - Particle Fabrics / Signatures of the Invisible 2

      View publication(s):
      - Surface Treatment of Flooring Material (patent)
    • Professor Helen Thomas

    • Professor Helen Thomas

    • Director of Research, London College of Fashion

    • Role: Directors, Management Board
    • Email: h.thomas@fashion.arts.ac.uk
    • Interest: Historical and Cultural Studies
    • Statement:
      The major focus of my research is in the area of the body and dance within the field of the sociology of dance and culture, which covers theatrical dance and social dance and involves theoretical and empirical studies. I have been directing three 'dance included' research projects for South East Dance National Dance Agency. South East Dance has pioneered a Creative Dance Apprenticeships (CDA) scheme which employs practitioners, usually skilled in 'street dance' techniques, to work with young people who have been excluded or who have excluded themselves from mainstream schooling on specific dance related projects, such as creating a dance/music video. CDA projects have a research section built into them, to monitor and evaluate them with the aim of developing a flexible embodied, participatory methodology which could be applied to other arts included projects. I am currently engaged in writing a book entitled The Body in Everyday Life which will be published in a Routledge book series, which will also be published as an E-book.

      View publication(s):
      - Growing Old Gracefully: Social Dance in the Third Age
      - Mimesis and Alterity in the African Caribbean Quadrille...
      - The Body, Dance and Cultural Theory
      - Dancing into the Third Age: Social Dance as Cultural Te...
    • Professor Martin Woolley

    • Professor Martin Woolley

    • Director of Research, Central Saint Martins

    • Role: Management Board
    • Email: m.woolley@csm.arts.ac.uk
    • Website: http://www.design-council.org.uk/
    • Interest: Design research; Sustainability; Product semantics; Technology transfer; Doctoral pedagogy; User-centred design
    • Statement:
      With an early background in three dimensional and industrial design, my research interests have broadened to encompass design-related aspects of the innovation process i.e. how design concepts evolve and move into the public domain, either in a commercial or societal context. More recently I have moved into a research project management role, initially as Director of the HEFCE/TLTP funded 'demi' Project which established web-based learning and teaching resources for UK design courses. I am currently principle investigator on the E.U. Framework 5 'AGORA Cities for People' project and on the 'Emotional Wardrobe' Designing for the 21st Century EPSRC/AHRC cluster project. I have continuing international research collaborations with universities in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia and Finland. I have been the academic consultant to the Design Council's web-based, 'Knowledge Cell' project, supporting the editing and authoring process across an extensive range of web-based design information resources, intended for business, practice and education.