BA (Hons) Cordwainers Footwear

Sarah Day is course leader and graduated from the original Cordwainers Technical College in the 1980s. A childhood obsession with drawing shoes became a career and Sarah has enjoyed a prolific commercial presence developing designs for a wide range of companies, such as Clarks and Pentland PLC’s brands, such as Lacoste. She set up her own design consultancy in 1997, specialising in Far Eastern sourcing, and managed an impressive client list which included her former employers Clarks and other well-known high street companies such as M&S and Next. She began teaching at Cordwainers at London College of Fashion in 2006 and she has taught across all year groups.

Sarah has a goal to enthuse students with the same passion for shoes as she has, and hopes to share the same excitement and energy.  She positively encourages the fusion of traditional craft skills and new technology within footwear design and the course reflects this aspiration. Sarah is a member of the Cordwainers livery company as a Liveryman, and was recently was granted the Freedom of the City of London.  She regularly takes part in Livery events, including the Blenheim Triathlon, to raise funds for the Master’s charities.

Daphne Bikker studied Product Design at the Academy of Art and Design in Arnhem while learning the craft of traditional shoe making. After successfully completing her BA degree, Daphne moved to London to study for her MA in Footwear Design at the London College of Fashion. Soon after receiving a distinction for her MA collection she moved to China to work as a designer for United Nude. Her work embraced modern technology such as 3D printing and unconventional materials such as carbon fiber. While at United Nude Daphne has worked together with artist from different disciplines such as architects, fashion designers and performers. After 5 years of building the range and managing the design team in China, Daphne moved back to London and worked on her eponymous formal men's shoe brand combining traditional shoe making with contemporary techniques. She set up a workshop in London with industrial machinery where she handmade her samples. After a stint in Italy Daphne moved back to London as a Lecturer on the BA Footwear Product Design and Innovation course.

Ian Goff grew up in a world of shoes as his father worked for the Royal Shoemakers H&M Rayne, he would spend many a school holiday and weekend joining him at work. He trained as a footwear designer and maker at the Cordwainers College. Ian then worked for Nafi Mustafa as a design assistant moving on to G.H. Warner Footwear as a product developer and range planner. This involved working with factories in India, China, Thailand, and Spain to produce footwear for a wide range of retailers such as River island, Marks & Spencer & Debenhams to name a few. This gave Ian a good grounding in the industry to have the confidence and desire to develop his own brand of men’s footwear selling to small independent retailers in the UK. It was during this time that Ian was asked to do some teaching at LCF and is now a full time member of the teaching team.

All of the in-house technicians and the footwear specialist visiting lecturers have experience in the industry or have run their own businesses; many have done both. They are passionate about the subject area, enjoy passing their knowledge on to the next generation and integrating emerging technologies into traditional techniques to create new solutions to design problems.

Dai Rees is programme director for the design and craft courses. He is an artist, designer, curator and academic. He launched his eponymous fashion label in the Nineties, showing collections at London Fashion Week and selling to some of the most famous boutiques in the world. His work is held in major public and private collections including at the V&A in London and the MET in New York.

José Teunissen is dean of the School of Design and Technology at London College of Fashion, UAL, and professor of Fashion Theory. José previously worked as a journalist for several Dutch newspapers and Dutch broadcast television, and was curator Fashion and Costume at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht (1998-2006). At ArtEZ in 2002, José was one of the first professors in the Netherlands to conduct research and develop theory in the field of fashion. In 2008, she set up the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) research project National Identity in a Globalised World, working closely with Radboud University Nijmegen and other universities of applied sciences. José took various hot items from the fashion industry, including the effects of globalisation, sustainability and technology, and used them as the basis for research projects, publications and exhibitions in association with ArtEZ Press, which earned her an excellent international reputation.