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Centre for Fashion Curation

Two mannequins with puffed sleeves
Two mannequins with puffed sleeves
The Vulgar, Winterpalais, Belvedere, Museums, Vienna, 3 March - 25 June 2017

A world-leading centre in the field of fashion curation.

The Centre for Fashion Curation (CfFC) is an international centre which explores all elements of exhibition-making and archival research. Situated within an academic and inclusive environment, the Centre engages with meaningful and experimental enquiries into theoretical and practice-based fashion curation.

The Centre provides a unique catalyst and platform for research, exhibitions, symposiums, workshops and publications, and collections-based enquiries.

Research, teaching and learning are embedded within the practices of the Centre. CfFC’s academics lead and teach on the MA Fashion Curation and most provide PhD supervision.

We actively forge close partnerships with global, national and regional museums, galleries, archives, private collections, conservators, creative and commercial industries and publishers to support the theory and practice of the discipline in its broadest sense.

Our catalogue of searchable fashion exhibitions, Exhibiting Fashion is a growing repository of exhibitions, imagery and official press releases. Spanning the early days of the discipline to current exhibition releases, the Exhibiting Fashion website will equip researchers with knowledge and expand the discipline through commissioned responses from artists, curators and writers.

Selected exhibitions will include responses by external contributors, (including artists, academics, writers, photographers and illustrators).

Find out more about the Centre for Fashion Curation.

Exhibiting Fashion

Our catalogue of searchable fashion exhibitions, Exhibiting Fashion is a growing repository of exhibitions, imagery and official press releases.

Contact

cffc@arts.ac.uk

Twitter @cffc_ual

Instagram @cffc_ual

London College of Fashion
University of the Arts London
20 John Prince’s Street,
London, W1G 0BJ

Find us

Practice-based Research

Practice-based PhD student at Centre for Fashion Curation, Louise Chapman presented a new approach to her PhD confirmation. Louise created a multi-sensory experience for her examiner, Donatella Barbieri, through a participatory, object-based approach to the presentation of her research

International partnerships

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    Exhibitionism - 50 Years of the Museum at FIT  

    A talk by Dr Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at FIT (MFIT) in New York.

  • Book cover Paris, Capital of Fashion
    Paris-Capital-of-Fashion-Book-Cover-web.jpg
    Paris, Capital of Fashion  

    Paris, Capital of Fashion, a talk by Dr Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at FIT (MFIT) in New York.

  • Reigning Men Exhibition, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
    Reigning Men Exhibition, Los Angeles County Museum of Art Reigning Men Exhibition, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Image courtesy of Jeffrey Horsley
    Reigning Men: Fashion in Menswear 1715 - 2015  

    Curator's talk by Sharon Takeda, Curator of Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

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    The Dress Detective  

    Dr Ingrid Mida, Curator, Dress Historian and post doctoral fellow, Ryerson University talks about her book The Dress Detective: A Practical Guide to Object-Based Research in Fashion

Research and debate

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    Debating the Disciplines  

    Centre members, Professors Amy de la Haye and Judith Clark, Alison Moloney, Professor Claire Wilcox, Professor Carol Tulloch and Dr Shaun Cole engage in debate in a round table discussion about fashion curation Debating the Disciplines.

  • Gluck Art and Identity exhibition - mannequin and clothing display
    Gluck exhibition-1.JPG Gluck Art and Identity Exhibition - the artist's clothing on display
    Gluck: Art and Identity Curatorial Research Methodologies and symposium  

    A talk by Prof Amy de la Haye and Dr Jeffrey Horsley on curatorial methods used in the Gluck: Art and Identity exhibition, a Heritage Lottery Funded partnership with Brighton Museum on the British artist Gluck.  Followed by a Symposium: Gluck: Art  and Identity: Dressing the artist. Among the themes were: Exhibiting a Life in Art; Absence, Gender, identities; and Art and LGBTQ* Biographies.

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    Feeling our Way: Memory and the Senses  

    A talk by Professor Gaynor Kavanagh, Emeritus Professor, Cardiff Metropolitan University.

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    Other talks, Symposiums and Conferences  

    A deeper look into CfFC's themes with speakers including Elizabeth Crooke from the University of Ulster on displaying garments emblematic of the Northern Ireland troubles; Paola di Trocchi, writer and fashion curator at the NGV National Gallery of Victoria, and PhD graduate Dr Jenna Rossi Camus.

Sabotage and Tradition Conference on Alexander McQueen

  • Model with white face red lips
    McQueen red lips AW09
    Conference Part 1  

    Models, Mannequins and Bodies, Modelling McQueen, Caroline Evans Professor of Fashion History and Theory, Central St Martins, UAL, Bodies, Artifice and Atrocities, Jane Munro, Keeper, Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, In conversation: Meeting the Maker and the Model, Caroline Evans Professor of Fashion History and Theory, Central St Martins, UAL, Kees van der Graaf, Designer Laura Morgan, Model. Costume and Performance Theatrical Cut: McQueen at Berman’s & Nathan’s, Keith Lodwick, Assistant Curator, Theatre and Performance Department, V & A, Dancing McQueen, Jane Pritchard, Curator of Dance, Theatre and Performance Department, V & A.

  • Web-Installation-view-of--'Cabinet-of-Curiosities'-gallery,-Alexander-McQueen-Savage-Beauty-at-the-V&A-(c)-Victoria-and-Albert-Museum-London.jpg
    Conference Part 2 and 3  

    Part 2 Adornment. Makeup, Masquerade and McQueen, Janice Miller, Senior Lecturer of Cultural and Historical Studies, London College of Fashion, Bird-women: feathers, claws and metaphor in the work of Alexander McQueen, Kate Bethune, Senior Exhibition Researcher, Alexander McQueen.Part 3 Georgina Goodman, Shoe Designer in conversation with Oriole Cullen, Acting Senior Curator of Contemporary Fashion, V & A, Student Presentation, Sam Gainsbury, Gainsbury and Whiting in conversation with Susannah Frankel, Fashion Director, Grazia Magazine and Closing Remarks.

Centre for Fashion Curation stories

  • Ravishing: the Rose in Fashion book by Amy de la Haye

    Amy de la Haye gives readers a taste of her latest book, Ravishing: The Rose in Fashion, which explores how and why the rose has remained an enduring motif in all aspects of fashionable dress—from 18th-century woven silks to the latest

  • MA Fashion Curation Student Showcase

    With the Graduate Student Showcase online this year, we spoke to three of the MA Fashion Curation graduates from the class of 2020 about the impacts and challenges they encountered when interpreting their work into a digital format.

  • A Cabinet of Serendipities

    This display comprised objects collected as aides to Jenna Rossi-Camus' practice-based doctoral research in fashion curation. The practical element of Jenna's thesis was a proposal for a site-responsive exhibition about fashion and graphic satire

  • Piecemakers

    The development of 'Piecemakers', by its curator, LCF Archivist Susanna Cordner. The exhibition celebrated the makers and manufacturers behind the work of London designers, representing them by the tools of their trade.

  • See all stories

Projects

  • A young man taking of a sweat shirt with a 'Wu-Tang' logo

    Subcultures: Then and Now

    Celebrating 25th anniversary of a groundbreaking fashion exhibition 'Streetstyle' held at the V&A in 1994 through a series of exhibitions, podcasts and events.

  • Fashion Interpretations logo

    Fashion Interpretations

    An international, interdisciplinary network focuses on the ways modern and contemporary fashion is continually reinterpreted through varied mediums.

  • Wooden upright chair with a pair of white shoes and wooden box on floor

    Footnotes

    Work inspired by selected shoes from LCF’s archive, revealing new interpretations of historic objects.

  • 4 mannequins displaying fashion in The Vulgar exhibition

    Vulgar

    An exhibition to challenge and reconsider this important area of taste.

See all projects

Engage

  • Objects of a Passion - overlapping graphic on blue background
    Objects of a Passion Objects of a passion - Platform Lecture by Amy de la Haye
    Objects of a Passion  

    Platform lecture by Professor Amy de la Haye.

  • Closeup of pom poms on wires
    2 Techtile Jungle by MA Fashion Curation students
    Sartorial Stories  

    LCF's Fashion Archivist Susanna Cordner, sits down with creditable fashion industry guests to discuss their sartorial choices, careers and work. The guest brings one item from their work or wardrobe to discuss in detail. Guests include Shahidha Bari, writer, academic and professor of Fashion Cultures, Funmi Fetto - Contributing Editor for Vogue and Brand Consultant for Luxury Beauty Brands and Ade Hassan MBE, the founder and director of Nubian Skin.

PhD Students

  • Louise Elizabeth Penn Chapman
    Louise Elizabeth Penn Chapman Louise Elizabeth Penn Chapman
    Louise Chapman

  • Portrait of June Rowe
    June Rowe.JPG June Rowe
    June Rowe

  • Painting of a girl
    cyana madsen hero image.jpg Cyana Sailmaker by Stephen Appleby-Barr (2018)
    Cyana Madsen

Past PhDs

Matteo Augello: Corporate cultural policies and museums: a critical evaluation of the role of the industry in the evolution of fashion curation in Italy. View Matteo's alumni profile.

Watch a research lecture by Dr Augello.

Sara Chong Kwan: Making Sense of Everyday Dress: Integrating multi-sensory experience within our understanding of contemporary dress in the UK.

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