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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.  We have developed the  ‘Exhibiting Fashion’ website, a database that records. by year, details of international fashion exhibitions for the purposes of capturing, investigating and reappraising the discipline of fashion exhibition-making.

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.

Find out more about the Centre for Fashion Curation.

Contact

Email  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

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

Online resources


  • Exhibiting Fashion  

    A website that records, by year, details of international fashion exhibitions for the purposes of capturing, investigating and reappraising the discipline of fashion exhibition-making.

  • London College of fashion logo
    LCF Soundcloud
    Sartorial Stories podcasts  

    LCF's Archivist Susanna Cordner in conversation with fashion industry guests on their sartorial choices, careers and work.

  • arm pointing at book in c.1950s photo

    LCF Archives events  

    Engage with the Archive through Bring your Own Object and Fashioning Stories events.

International partnerships

Research and debate


  • 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 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.


  • Feeling our Way: Memory and the Senses  

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


  • 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: Alexander McQueen

  • Model with white face red lips

    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.


  • 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

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 - 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
    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
    Credit: Image courtesy of UAL Image courtesy of UAL, Louise Elizabeth Penn Chapman
    Louise Chapman

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.

Jenna Rossi-Camus: Curating the fashion victim: establishing strategies for exhibition-making towards the presentation of fashion and humour in museums and galleries. View Jenna's alumni profile.

Ben Whyman: How can a detailed material culture analysis of fashionable menswear wardrobes augment biographical and museological interpretations? A comparative analysis of three twentieth century menswear collections from the Victoria and Albert Museum. View Ben's alumni profile.

June Rowe: Sculpting Beauty: a Cultural Analysis of Mannequin Design and Fashionable Feminine Silhouettes. View June's research.

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