SPEAKER BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION in alphabetical order (as submitted by each speaker)

Margret Olugbemisola Areo was born in Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honours from the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, in 1984. She worked for over a decade as an enterpreneur in textile and fashion designing. She obtained a Master of Fine Art (MFA) degree from the same institution in 2001. She bagged her doctorate degree from Ladoke Akintola University where shes currently lectures as a Senior Lecturer. Her area of interest spans textile designing, interior decoration, fashion designing, textile conservation in Museums, iconography and iconology of textile symbols and art history. Her MFA was on production of leather, usage for resist techniques and adaptation of the end product in fashion embelisments. Her PhD research focused on five decades of Adire in Southwestern Nigeria.

 Co-presenter:

• Adebowale (Debo) Biodun Areo was born in Keffi in Nasarawa State, Nigeria. He obtained a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) and Master of Philosophy (M.Phil) in Botany from the University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos. He also holds postgraduate Diploma in Management studies (PGDMS), Master of Business Administration (MBA) and PhD in Business Administration (MARKETING) all from Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile-Ife. Dr. Areo is an erstwhile curator of National Museums of Ile-Ife, and Osogbo all in Osun State, Ilorin National Museum in Kwara State and National Museum of Benin, Edo State, as well as of the National Museums of Benin, Osogbo, Ilorin and Ile-Ife, all in Nigeria. Dr. Areo now works in National Museum, 16 Cotonou Street, Wuse Zone 6, and in Abuja as Deputy Director of Monuments. He was privileged in participating in the preparation of dossiers that ensured the enlistment of two World Heritage Sites in Nigeria bringing his knowledge of Botany and Marketing to bear on these sites. He has published academic papers in reputable local and foreign journals. He also co-authored many books notable among which are: Hand-Built Pottery of Nigeria (2011), Principles and Practice Marketing (1999), and 30^th Anniversary of Oba of Benin (2009).

Christina Bates for 21 years held the position of curator in history at the Canadian Museum of Civilization.  As keeper of the costume collection, she was instrumental in developing the museum’s holdings of work and everyday clothing, and garments made of hand-woven materials.  Recently retired, she continues with research projects and consultation at the museum. Her expertise is in the field of material culture, with particular scholarship on the history of dress.  She is a seasoned presenter at conferences of, for example, the Costume Society of America, the Berkshires Women’s History, the Costume Society (UK), International Nursing History, and the Costume Colloquium (2010). She has served on the Board and Executive of the Costume Society of America (CSA).  She is Associate Editor and book review editor of Dress, the journal of the CSA.  In 2008, the CSA awarded her a member of the Scholar’s Roundtable. She has curated numerous exhibitions, including Hold Onto Your Hats and A Caring Profession:  Centuries of Nursing in Canada. Her most recent book, A Cultural History of the Nurse’s Uniform won the CSA Milia Davenport Award for the best book on the topic of dress published in 2012.

Beatrice Behlen studied fashion design in Germany before moving to London in 1989. Following a postgraduate course in the History of Dress at the Courtauld Institute, Beatrice worked as curatorial assistant at Kensington Palace. She then turned to teaching fashion and design students at several art colleges before working at the contemporary art gallery Annely Juda Fine Art. At the beginning of 2003 Beatrice returned to Kensington Palace where she curated and co-curated exhibitions on coronation robes, the Queen’s hats, Mario Testino’s photographs of Diana Princess of Wales and the influence of Princess Margaret on fashion. In late 2007 Beatrice became Senior Curator of Fashion & Decorative Arts at the Museum of London where she oversaw the installation of more than 300 dress objects in a new permanent gallery, secured the acquisition of several large groups of clothing filling gaps in the museum’s holdings and writes about the collection on the museum’s blog. Beatrice has been an associate lecturer at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design since 2005 delivering seminars on subcultures and the discovery and use of source material for the history of dress.

Helena Beks is a jurist and independent legal researcher and occasional freelance interior designer based in the Netherlands. She attained a master’s degree in Japanese Language and Culture, a master’s degree in Philosophy of Law, both from Leiden University, and a master’s degree in Design Cultures from the VU University Amsterdam. Her academic background reflects in her interdisciplinary research interests, which include (interior) design and fashion, fashion philosophy, professional dress and (collective) identity and fashion and law. What unites these is an interest in questions of unity and diversity in constituting identity through fashion and dress. Her recent MA thesis for Design Cultures titled ‘The Big Black Dress, the fashion of the judicial and legal robe in the Netherlands’ was the impetus for her current research on the legal robe; investigating this ubiquitous garment in its multifariousness not only in the Low Countries but also in other countries.

Monica Bethe: Weaver, natural dyer, and textile researcher, I have assisted in preparing exhibitions and catalogs in the United States and Japan exhibiting Japanese kosode (Japan Society, Los Angeles County Museum), noh costumes (Rhode Island School of Design, Chicago Art Institute, Los Angeles County Museum), Japanese priest’s robes (Kyoto National Museum), and convent treasures, such as religious robes, altar cloths and banners (Tokyo University of the Arts, NHK-Takashimaya). After teaching at Japanese Universities most of my adult life, I am now involved in supporting the Japanese Imperial Convents, including researching their textiles and assisting conservation work on their treasures.

Joy Bivins, member of the Chicago History Museum staff since 2002, has used her passion for her city’s history and people to develop diverse exhibitions including Chicago History in Pictures (2002); Teen Chicago (2004); Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America (2005); Colonia to Community: The Southeast Side (2006); and Facing Freedom (2010). Most recently, she served as lead curator for Inspiring Beauty: 50 Years of Ebony Fashion Fair. Ms. Bivins is a regular presenter at local schools and has presented at the annual meetings of the American Association of Museums, the Association of African American Museums, the Association of Midwest Museums, and the Oral History Association. Bivins has contributed to the Journal of American History, authored exhibition-related essays for Chicago History magazine, and is a regular contributor to the Museum’s blog. In addition to her curatorial work, Ms. Bivins has also taught courses at the School of the Art Institute and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Bivins received her bachelor’s degree in History from the University of Michigan (1998) and her Master’s degree in Africana Studies from Cornell University (2003).

Anna Buruma trained as a theatre designer at Central School of Art & Design. She worked in the theatre and later as a costume designer for television and film. In 1993/4 she studied History of Dress at the Courtauld Institute. She has been the archivist at Liberty since 1995 and curator at Central Saint Martins Museum & Study Collection since 2005.

Veronica Casado Hernandez works as an advertising costume director.  She recently achieved her BFA in Fiber Arts and Culture and Politics In the Maryland Institute College of Art while taking courses in Cultural History in Johns Hopkins University. She is a MFA candidate in the Art Institute of Chicago. She currently divides her time between Spain, Mexico and the US, researching British Cultural History of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and continuing art projects and collaborations.

Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell is a Los Angeles-based independent scholar. She has worked as a curator, consultant, and educator for museums and universities around the world, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens; The J. Paul Getty Museum; the Portland Art Museum; De Montfort University; the Musée Galliera; the Château de Versailles; the University of California; the Mobile Museum of Art; and the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. Her book Fashion Victims: Dress at the Court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette has just been released by Yale University Press. In addition, her work has been published in Costume, Textile History, PieceWork, Eighteenth-Century Studies, and Dress, as well as several books and exhibition catalogues. She has appeared as a fashion commentator on the Biography Channel, and she is a regular contributor to Ornament and Slate.com. She received her BA in English and Eighteenth-Century Studies from Stanford University; her MA in History of Dress from the Courtauld Institute of Art; and her PhD in Art History and French from the University of Aberdeen. She is currently researching American designer Chester Weinberg, one of the participants in the 1968 White House Fashion Show.

Geraldine Craig is an artist and writer whose research focuses on the intersections or relationships between textile history, theory/criticism, curatorial work, and studio practice. She is especially interested in marginalized craft practices, with primary research interests Hmong textiles and contemporary art and craft. She received her Master of Fine Arts from Cranbrook Academy of Art (1989). She’s taught at Red Deer College, Canada; College for Creative Studies, Detroit; low-residency MFA, Vermont College; and as Assistant Director for Academic Programs, Cranbrook Academy of Art (2001 – 2007), developed the annual Critical Studies/Humanities program. Craig is a 2014 Fellow-in-Residence at the Women’s International Study Center in Santa Fe; the 2012-2013 Dorothy Liesky Wampler Eminent Professor, James Madison University; Associate Fellow, International Quilt Study Center & Museum, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (2010); the
1994-95 James Renwick Senior Fellow in American Craft, Smithsonian. Craig has published a monograph on the work of sculptor Joan Livingstone (Telos: London), and more than ninety book chapters, essays, and reviews in periodicals such as Art in America, Hmong Studies Journal, Sculpture, Surface Design Journal, and The Journal of Modern Craft, among others. She has been Department Head of Art at Kansas State University since July 2007.

Jennifer Daley researches military fashion. She is interested in how and why military uniform developed and the ways in which elements of military uniform appear in women’s civilian fashion. Jennifer is a PhD candidate in History within The Department of War Studies, King’s College, London, where she is researching sailor uniforms and nautical fashion. Her PhD supervisor is the naval historian, Professor Andrew Lambert. Jennifer also earned an MA from King’s College in International Relations, where her dissertation focused on the political economics of the interwar period, 1919-1939. She is particularly interested in how wartime politics affect fashion. In 2007, she graduated with an MA in Art History within The Department of Dress History at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, with a dissertation titled, ‘Uniforms and Uniformity: The Development of British Royal Navy Sailor Uniform and Its Influence on Civilian Fashion in Victorian England, 1846-1901,’ under the supervision of Professor Aileen Ribeiro. Jennifer is a graduate of the intensive millinery program within The Department of Fashion at Kensington and Chelsea College, London, where she designed and made military and wartime-inspired hats and headpieces for historic and modern wear. Jennifer holds a BA from The University of Texas at Austin

Anjali Deshmukh: I have worked in the field of natural vegetable dyes and natural dyes since last 15 years. Presently I am engaged in research on dying, painting and printing with natural sources in style of Kalamkari and Madhubani, famous traditional Indian arts which richly displays the mythological stories.  The paintings are done on both fabric and canvas as decorative materials. I’m also trying to introduce these styles on different outfits and have attended many National and International Conferences to introduce my work in this field. I had also organized the events fashion soiree to present outfits with traditional Indian embroideries, colour values and seasonal clothing. Other event like heritage India, Texpression and Trends as Institutional Fashion shows, very recently I have organized Green Textiles, Green Fashions, Exhibition and Competition for green environment. Organized awareness programs on natural colourants in colleges. I have joined with Society of Natural dyes and colourist New Delhi, Indian Science Congress Association, Kolkata, working as Vice President of Wild life and Environment Conservation Society, Amravati and has regularly organized workshop for school kids to prepare greeting card and religious idols with natural colours.

Emmanuelle Dirix is Theory Coordinator for the BA Textiles degrees at Chelsea College of Art & Design (UAL), history and theory tutor at the Antwerp Fashion Academy and visiting fellow at the Hong Kong Design Institute. She has previously lectured at Central Saint Martins, The Royal College of Art and the London College of Fashion. She also works as a free-lance curator, her most recent show Unravel – Knitwear in Fashion was hosted at Momu, Antwerp and in the past she has worked for the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and the Whitworth Art gallery in Manchester.  Her research interests center around the historiography of fashion, conflict & fashion, the globelisation of beauty ideals and gender studies.

Mary M. Dusenbury Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas. She is currently project director of Color in Ancient and Medieval East Asia, an international and interdisciplinary collaboration of scholars seeking to advance research in this important but understudied field. The project began with a small colloquium (2010) followed by a larger working symposium (March 2013) to share research and prepare for an edited volume of essays. Dusenbury began her study of color in East Asia with a year-long course on the history of color in Japan with color historian Nagasaki Seiki at the University of Arts in Kyoto (Kyoto Geijutsu Daigaku). Her PhD dissertation (Asian art history, University of Kansas) focused on color in Heian period Japan (794-1185) and included an annotated translation of the Kusagusa no some yōdo, a tenth century manual for dyers in the Bureau of the Wardrobe. Her undergraduate degree is from Harvard University. Dr. Dusenbury has written and lectured extensively on East and Central Asian textiles, most recently at the Getty Research Institute, “ Color Matters: The Significance and Materiality of Color in Ancient and Medieval East Asia. Color Colloquium, June 4-5, 2013.

Diane Fagan Affleck is consulting curator at the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts. She began her work at ATHM in 1982 as curator of the textile collection and was later appointed senior curator. As director of interpretation, she was responsible for ATHM’s exhibition program. Fagan Affleck’s research has focused on nineteenth-century printed textiles and American handweaving. She is the author of Just New from the Mills: Printed Cottons in America, which explored the designs, aesthetics, printing techniques, business practices, and consumer preferences of American printed cotton fabrics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. An exhibition of the same name narrowed the focus to the work of one company, the Cocheco Manufacturing Company. Celebration and Remembrance: Commemorative Textiles in America, 1790-1990 examined commemorative textiles from political handkerchiefs of the early United States through Bruce Springsteen concert t-shirts. In Textiles for Victorian and Edwardian Clothing: 1880-1920, Fagan Affleck and co-author Karen Herbaugh brought together research on clothing styles and fashion with actual fabric samples to give readers a concrete sense of fabrics available in the period. Fagan Affleck is a graduate of St. Lawrence University (Canton, NY) and holds an MA from The George Washington University (Washington, DC).

Co-presenter:

• Karen Herbaugh has worked at the American Textile History Museum for 20 years, 12 as the curator of the textile, clothing and pre-industrial machinery collections. She has grown the costume collection to over 6,500 objects, with specific emphasis on 19th -century printed cottons to compliment the museum’s 5 million fabric samples. Ms. Herbaugh collaborated on the 2010 two-year renovation of ATHM’s main exhibition, Textile Revolution. One of her primary responsibilities was to incorporate the stories of everyday Americans through the art, science and history of textiles. Her research interests are varied: from Sino-Japanese influence on Western dress, late 19^th century fabrics, 1950s textile designs by the Associated American Artists and fabric diaries.  Most recently she has been working with Liz Seaton at The Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art at Kansas State University to publish an index of prints, ceramics, textiles, and color reproductions issued by the Associated American Artists (1934-2000). The project also involves developing a related traveling exhibition and catalogue. The exhibition will open at the Beach Museum of Art in 2015. The project will be the first major survey of the contributions of the Associated American Artists to American culture during the twentieth century.

Jonathan Faiers is Reader in Fashion Theory at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. He received his BA in Fashion and Textile Design (St Martins 1980), a Post-Graduate Diploma in Theatre Design (Slade School 1982), an MA in Critical Theory (Goldsmiths 1994) and his PhD in 2001 (University of London). His work explores the interface between popular culture, textiles and dress and he teaches and acts as external examiner for a number of UK institutions including The University of the Arts and the Royal College of Art. His interdisciplinary study Tartan was published by Berg in 2008, and his latest book Dressing Dangerously: Dysfunctional Fashion in Film by Yale University Press in 2013. He has written on subjects including: knitting and formlessness, Balenciaga and ecclesiastical dress, Classicism, fashion and science fiction, tweed and gender subversion, pioneers of dress history and theory, the influence of Italian sportswear on British men’s style for the recent V&A publication The Glamour of Italian Fashion 1945-2014, and is currently researching the work of a group of female post-war London couturiers. Luxury: History, Culture and Consumption, a new peer-reviewed, critical journal edited by Jonathan was launched by Bloomsbury in September of this year. He acts as a member of the Fashion Publishing Group at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Sarah Fee is Curator of Eastern Hemisphere Textiles and Costume at the Royal Ontario Museum, Canada’s largest museum. She is responsible for the ca. 14,000 objects from Africa, Asia and the Islamic World. She holds degrees in anthropology and African Studies from Oxford University and the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (Paris, France). She has been conducting research on the handweaving and dress traditions of Madagascar since 1989, and has carried out associated object realted research throughout Europe and North America. This work has resulted in a major exhibition and catalogue at Smithsonian Institution, as well as numerous publications and lectures. Most recently she has begun studying handweaving and the historic textile trades throughout the western Indian Ocean, with field and object research carried out in Tanzania and Oman. She teaches in the Art Department of the University of Toronto, and is a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution, and at the Musee du Quai Branly.

Michelle Tolini Finamoreis the Penny Vinik Curator of Fashion Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and holds a Ph.D. from the Bard Graduate Center in New York City. She has worked in a curatorial capacity at many museums, including the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and as a fashion specialist at Sotheby’s auction house. She has curated a range of exhibitions including: Hollywood Glamour: Fashion and Jewelry from the Silver Screen and Think Pink at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Cocktail Culture at the Norton Museum of Art; Driving Fashion: Automobile Upholstery from the 1950s at the Museum at FIT; and assisted with Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has taught courses on fashion, design, and film history at the Rhode Island School of Design and Massachusetts College of Art. She most recently authored Hollywood Before Glamour: Fashion in American Silent Film (Palgrave, 2013) and co-authored a book on the history of studio jewelry, Jewelry by Artists: In the Studio, 1940-2000 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2010). Finamore has lectured widely and written numerous articles for both the scholarly and popular press, including Fashion Theory, Architecture Boston, and Gastronomica.

Aurora Fiorentini was the project manager in charge of creating the historical Gucci Archive and the Gucci Museum for Guccio Gucci SpA from 1996 through 2001 in Florence, Italy. She then was the Art and Fashion consultant for Hugo Boss Industries Ldt between 2005 and 2007. After this project, she consulted on Art and Fashion for Confindustria Emilia Romagna in 2008 and 2009. Currently, she performs a broad range of consulting activities for various international fashion companies, doing research on their history and stylistic evolution to redevelop the creative landscape of both their collections and corporate identity. Ms. Fiorentini is also consultant to cultural institutions such as the Galleria del Costume at Palazzo Pitti in Florence and the Museo del Tessuto in Prato. Numerous exhibits have also been among her activities. She was the co-curator for many exhibits on Costume and Fashion at important Italian museums, the Louvre in Paris (1993) and the Solomon R. Guggenheim in New York (1994). Her work for educational entities includes the roles of lecturer and instructor within the most prestigious Italian institutions offering studies in Fashion: the Departments of Architecture and Literature of the University of Florence, The Department of Literature and Philosophy of Bologna; the Catholic University, the IULM and the Polytechnical of Milan. As an author, Ms. Fiorentini has produced non-fiction and monographs for international publishers on the subjects of Art, Costume and Fashion, Textiles and Costume Jewelry.

Elizabeth Galindo Roberts is a couture and costume designer who is a member of the Costume Designer’s Guild Local 892. She is also a costume and production design researcher working with directors such as David Fincher, Terrence Malick and Paul Thomas Anderson. Galindo earned a Bachelors of Science from the University of Southern California. Galindo earned a Masters Fine Arts and a PhD in Performance Studies with an emphasis in Film and Fashion at the University of California, Davis. Galindo’s dissertation is titled “The Interaction of ‘Originary Practices’ and Costume Design in the Development of Historical Film Genre in 21st Century Hollywood Cinema.” Galindo studied and earned several proficiency degrees in silk screening, hand blocking and embroidery work on fabrics at the Fuji Institute in Florence, Italy. Galindo has spoken around the world on “The Relationship between Fashion and Costume Design in Film”. Dr. Galindo own personal clothing designs are highlighted in the book “California Couture’. Her recent textbook on the “History of the Wedding Gown in World Cultures” was just completed. Her current research focuses on the role of artisanal craft skills in the creation of ‘authenticity’ in historical film.

Silke Otta Geppert Academic background: – Ph. D. Art History, University of Vienna (2011) and University of Applied Arts, Vienna, Advisor: Prof. Dr. Annemarie Bönsch, Univ. Prof. Dr. Götz Pochat; Teaching Experience: Lecturer, Mozarteum University Salzburg, 2011 – Fashion History, Costume History, Fashion Theory; Lecturer, University of Graz, 2012- , Innsbruck 2013- The vestment of Saints in the  fithteenth century and the media communication; Lecturer, University of Applied Arts , Pforzheim (Germany), 2011- Fashion History and Fashion Theory; Lecturer, University Salzburg, 2011 Communication and Clothing in Religious Art;Teaching Interests: Communication and Clothing in Religious Art, The language of Clothes, Burgundian Art and Fashion, Stage Design and Costume History, Fashion History, Fashion Theory; Professional Experience:  Curator/ Art Historian,  2011- Dommuseum zu Salzburg;  Curator/Art Historian,  2004 – 2010 Salzburg Museum; Director of the Museum Ahrensburg (Germany), 2000 – 2004; Assistant to the Publisher, Nishen Publishing,  London, 1990 – 1991

Kate Irvin is Curator and Head of the Department of Costume and Textiles at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD Museum), where she has worked for the past ten years. Her recent exhibitions and projects at the Museum include: the inaugural displays in the museum’s brand-new Donghia Costume and Textiles Gallery and Study Center (June 2014); Artist/Rebel/Dandy: Men of Fashion (2013); From the Land of the Immortals: Chinese Taoist Robes and Textiles (2012); Cocktail Culture: Ritual and Invention in American Fashion, 1920-1980 (2011), with Joanne Ingersoll and Laurie Brewer; Sartorial Sanctuary: Clothing and Tradition in the Islamic World (2009); Designing Traditions Bienniel: Student Explorations in the Asian Textile Collection with Laurie Brewer (2008, 2010, and 2012); and research for Evolution/Revolution: The Arts and Crafts in Contemporary Fashion and Textiles (2008). In addition to her curatorial functions, she spends much of the semester teaching object-based classes for RISD and Brown courses that vary in subject matter from the History of Western Dress to the History of Chinese Art, from Textile Surface Design to Native American Literature.

Justyna Jaworska: 2013 – The organization of the conference “Fashion in Spite of All”; 2012- The chief of fashion studies section; 2008 – The book “Polish Customs, 20^th century in short Articles” (co-writing); 2008 – The book “Civilization of Przekroj” ;Oct. 2005 – Academic teacher in Institute for Polish Culture, Warsaw. Poland. Running courses of culture anthropology, visual media, workshop “Media in culture” and a seminary “Illustrated magazine”; 26 May 2005 – PhD “Civilization of Przekroj” (about the most popular Polish illustrated magazine in 1945-1962); 17 Jan.- 14 Feb. 2004 – Training visit at “The Public” (West Bromwich, GB), our partner in the UE culture animation program; 2002-2003  – Workshop for teenagers “Film review” ; 2001 –  Cooperation with “Dialog” magazine (translations, articles); Oct. 2000- VI 2005  – Doctoral Studies at the Institute for Polish Culture (Warsaw University); 28 Dec.1999 – Thesis “Stefan Themerson – views and ideas”; 1994-1999 – Studies at the Faculty of Polish Philology (Warsaw University). In addition – courses at the Faculties of Philosophy and History of Art

Kevin Jones is curator of the FIDM Museum at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, Los Angeles. He studied fashion design at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising and art history at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  Kevin joined the FIDM Museum as Collections Manager in 1999, and was appointed Curator in 2002 to oversee the Museum’s 15,000-piece collection. His fashion and social history expertise encompasses the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with an emphasis in haute couture. Kevin’s diverse exhibitions cover Hollywood to high fashion.  In 2009, he co-curated the Richard Martin Award-winning exhibition, catalogue, and documentary High Style: Betsy Bloomingdale and the Haute Couture. Recently Kevin co-curated FABULOUS! Ten Years of FIDM Museum Acquisitions, 2000-2010, and co-authored the accompanying 380-page catalogue covering fashion history from 1800 to 2010. Kevin often presents papers at academic symposia and is sought after for interviews in newspapers and magazines, and on radio and television.  Currently, he is working on the book First Class: Titanic’s Women of Fashion (anticipated publication 2016). Among Kevin’s professional associations, he is a member of the Costume Society of America, the Titanic Historical Society, and the Preservation Society of Newport, Rhode Island.

Susan Kay-Williams: I first attended a course on dyeing in 1988 and became fascinated by the colours that could be produced from natural dyestuffs, but as an academic (PhD in non-profit marketing and fundraising) I was intrigued by who discovered the colours, how the recipes were created and perfected and how this all changed with the serendipitous discovery of synthetic colours by William Perkin.  Since then my research led to the publication of my first book on the subject earlier this year which bring s together a range of research plus areas of my own work to give an overview of this broad subject. The book has a greater emphasis on the natural colours which dominated for thousands of years, but since then my research has focused more on colour in the synthetic era, with a particular emphasis on the first 50 years. My day job is as Chief Executive of the Royal School of Needlework, the world leader in teaching western technical hand embroidery, which runs certificate, diploma, degree and leisure programmes from its base at Hampton Court Palace, London and in nine centres  in the UK, Netherlands, Japan and the USA. I am also curator of the RSN’s collection of embroidered textiles. I have lectured extensively in the UK, Taiwan, Japan and the USA.

Shu Hwa Lin is an Associate Professor and Costume Curator at the Department of Family & Consumer Sciences in the Fashion Design & Merchandising program at the University of Hawai ̒i at Mānoa. She conducted experiments with vegetable dyes on natural fibers and conducted the effect vegetable dyes’ color on influences of pH scale (Developing natural dyestuffs and colorimetric changes regarding pH). Specially, she is interested on coffee dyes and attempted to preserve the coffee aroma as well. Also, Dr. Lin likes colors and aroma as health therapy aspects in her research. For thirteen years Dr. Lin worked in apparel companies as a Technical designer in charge of patterns and production management. She is especially interested in Chinese textiles in the Ming and Qing dynasty, specially the uses of color as ranks.

Co-presenter:  

• Margaret T. Ordoñez is a Professor in the Textile, Fashion Merchandising and Design Department at the University of Rhode Island. She also is the Director of the Historic Textile and Costume Collection and the Textile Gallery. She teaches Historic Textiles, History of Western Dress, four textile conservation courses, and textile science classes. Her research involves history of the New England textile industry, textile conservation treatments, and archaeological textiles from seventeenth-century Native American sites in New England, Medieval-age Iceland, and fourth- and fifth-century Maya sites in Guatemala and Honduras.

Alison Matthews David received a doctorate in Art History from Stanford University in 2002 for a thesis on tailoring and technology in nineteenth-century Paris. Her research deals with material culture, class and gender. She has published in a variety of journals and books and she regularly presents at international conferences. In 2010 she was awarded a 3-year Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada for her book project entitled Fashion Victims: The Dangers of Dress Past and Present (Bloomsbury, 2015) The book examines the intersections between dress and medical histories and explores the theme of clothing causing bodily harm to both its makers and wearers. As part of this project she will co-curate an exhibition with Elizabeth Semmelhack, Senior Curator at the Bata Shoe Museum. The exhibit, Chemical Dependency, explores toxins used to tan, dye, and maintain leather footwear in the nineteenth century.

Maurita Mondanaro has her Master’s of Arts in Museum Studies from The Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, and her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Northern Illinois University, Dekalb. She is currently employed as the Color, Print, and Trend Manager for Calvin Klein Underwear, a Phillips Van Heusen brand. She has worked for the Calvin Klein brand for over 17 years, beginning in the Calvin Klein Collection archive, setting up an internal library accessible to all design departments. She then managed the Design Color Library for Collection, CK, Jeans and Underwear departments, and finally joined the Underwear Design team in 2000 as an illustrator and graphic designer.

Deirdre Murphy is a curator at Historic Royal Palaces. She has curated several exhibitions at Kensington Palace including Victoria Revealed, a major permanent exhibition about the lives of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, which formed part of the Heritage Lottery Funded £12M re-presentation of Kensington Palace in 2012. Deirdre completed an MA in History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2002. She has worked at the Victoria and Albert Museum and Manchester City Galleries. She is an associate lecturer at Central Saint Martins and London College of Fashion.

Alexandra Murray-Leslie is co-founder of the collective Chicks on Speed and has worked 16 years as a researcher and artist in the fields of Pop Music, Fashion, Media Installations and ObjectInstrument design (self-made body-centric musical instruments for live performance) with the aim to blur the boundaries between disciplines through live transdisciplinary Live Art performances. The exhibitions and live performances of Chicks on Speed and Alex Murray-Leslie to date, have taken place at key cultural institutions including: Venice Biennale, MoMA, Centre Pompidiou, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary and the Museum for Old and New Art. Alex is currently a PhD candidate, in Creativity and Cognition Studios, faculty of Engineering and IT, University of Technology, Sydney. Her current practice based research encompasses designing new instruments for musical expression, for acoustic composition in multimodal fashion, music and live art performance.

Co-presenters:

• Sam Ferguson 
• Andrew Johnston

Charlotte Nicklas is Senior Lecturer in the History of Art and Design at the University of Brighton, where she has taught both history and design students since 2006. Nicklas’s primary research interests are dress and textiles of the nineteenth century, but she has also delivered recent conference papers on traditional Basque dress, as well as fashion in British interwar fiction. She received a BA in History and Literature from Harvard University and an MA in Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture from the Bard Graduate Center (New York). She received her PhD from the University of Brighton in 2010 for her thesis titled “Splendid Hues: Colour, Dyes, Everyday Science, and Women’s Fashion, 1840-1875,” which examined the cultural contexts of the transition from natural to artificial textile dyes in the mid-nineteenth century. While studying for her MA, Nicklas worked in the Exhibitions Department at the Bard Graduate Center, helping to organise exhibitions on a wide variety of design history topics. Before beginning postgraduate study, Nicklas worked in the Department of Textile and Fashion Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, managing departmental projects and helping with curatorial work.

Piyanan (Poom) Petcharaburanin graduated from the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University where she majored in Italian. She began her career as a journalist and columnist for sports newspapers and magazines in 1999 and was a foreign correspondent in Italy from 2002-2004. Following her return to Bangkok, Piyanan’s interest in indigenous Thai textiles led to her present position as in-house writer and editor at the Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles.  Fluent in English as well as Italian, Piyanan has overall responsibility for exhibition texts, books and museum publications in Thai and works closely with the QSMT’s consulting curators on the museum’s English-language publications. She wrote the Thai version of the museum’s first exhibition catalogue, In Royal Fashion: The Style of Her Majesty Queen Sirikit of Thailand, and is currently at work on publications for two upcoming exhibitions. Piyanan’s research interests include northeastern Thai handweaving and natural dyeing techniques, color rules at the Thai court (the theme of an educational installation she helped develop at the museum), and the collection of Indonesian batiks assembled by King Chulalongkorn of Thailand in the late 19^th century.

Co-presenter:

•  Alisa Saisavetvaree holds a B.F.A. in Painting from Silpakorn University and an M.A. in Cultural Management from Chulalongkorn University. She has been a curator at the Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles since 2010. At the QSMT, Alisa co-curated Artistry in Silk: The Royal Style of Her Majesty Queen Sirikit, which opened in 2012, as well as several satellite exhibitions mounted by the museum offsite. Her research interests include historic Thai court textiles and costume, with an emphasis on retailing and the trade in textiles during the reign of King Chulalongkorn (1868-1910); the foreign travels of the Thai royal family; and the Western-style diplomacy of Thai monarchs. Currently, Alisa is co-curating an exhibition slated to open in August 2015, that will mark the 55th anniversary of Their Majesties’ extended state visit to Europe and the U.S..  She will also co-author its Thai catalogue.

Jennifer Rice received her BS in Fiber Science and Apparel Design Management from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.  Her senior year, she worked as a Collection and Teaching Assistant for the Cornell Costume Collection and the late Professor Charlotte Jirousek’s course The History of Textiles and Color.  After working in vintage clothing in New York City, she completed her MA in Fashion Curation from the London College of Fashion, London, England.  Her master’s thesis was an exhibition proposal entitled Imagining Color, the subject of which will be discussed in her presentation at Costume Colloquium IV: Colors in Fashion. Whilst a student and after graduation, she completed placements with the Costume Society of America, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, the Alexander McQueen Archives, the Ralph Lauren Library, and at The Wardrobe within the archives of major American fashion designers. She currently resides in New York City and works in Collection Management.

Clare Rose is the Contextual Studies Lecturer for the BA Degree Program at the Royal School of Needlework, London and also lectures on the History of Dress at the Victoria and AlbertMuseum. She holds a PhD in the History of Dress from the University of Brighton and an MA in the History of Art from New YorkUniversity. She has a special interest in the fashion industry from 1840 – 1914, and in the gaps between the ways that clothes were discussed and depicted and the visual and material qualities of the garments themselves. She has contributed to curatorial projects and publications at BerlinStateMuseums, The Women’s Library London, The National Archives London, and The John Johnson Collection of the Bodleian Library. She has published scholarly monographs, a set of edited documents on the clothing industry before 1914, scholarly articles, and interviews on BBC television and radio.  Her book Art Nouveau Fashion 1890-1914 will be published by V&A Publishing, London in 1914.

Leif Runefelt: I got my PhD in 2001, in Economic History, Stockholm University, on a thesis (in Swedish) on economic, ethical and psychological thought in 17^th century Sweden. After that, I wrote a book (in Swedish!) on 18th century Swedish economic thought (2005). That brought me into issues of consumption. From the perspective of the history of ideas, I have been analysing how Swedish elites react to the ongoing consumer revolution. In 2011, I published a book (in Swedish…! nr 2 of the publications mentioned below) dealing with the Swedish local gentry´s conceptions of itself and of its local communities and the peasantry within it. That is where I first found the Swedish intellectual, or moral, debate on indigo blue, which clearly is a consequence of the ongoing integration of the country with the global indigo trade. Presently I am part of a research project founded by the Swedish state, entitled “Seeing and enacting social order”, which studies the Swedish hierarchical society with a focus on its visualization. My part of the project is color as a tool of visualization of order (manifestations of, reproductions of and challenges against social order through the means of color).

Dennita Sewell has been Curator of Fashion Design at Phoenix Art Museum since January 2000. She received her MFA in Design from the Yale School of Drama and BA in Textile and Apparel Management from the University of Missouri.   Prior to Phoenix, Sewell was Collections Manager at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.  At Phoenix Art Museum she has organized over 30 exhibitions on topics ranging from motorcycle jackets to contemporary designers drawn from the Museum’s comprehensive collection, international fashion houses and private collections.  Her exhibition catalogues include Way Haute West, Garden of Eden, Extending the Runway: Tatiana Sorokko Style and Fashion Independent: The Original Style of Ann Bonfoey Taylor.

Michal Lynn Shumate is Administrative Director of the Low-Residency MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where she is also a Masters candidate in the Visual and Critical Studies program. Her research and writing on fashion theory began at the University of Chicago with her undergraduate thesis in Art History, and she continues to write and lecture on the evolving practice and theory of fashion exhibition and pedagogy. Publications include: “Fashion in the Expanded Field: The House of Viktor & Rolf and Valentino a Roma.”

Sonnet Stanfill is curator of 20th century and contemporary fashion at the V&A, where she has worked since 1999. Her exhibitions at the V&A include Ossie Clark (2003), New York Fashion Now (2007) and co-curation of Ballgowns: British Glamour Since 1950 (2012) for which she also co-edited the accompanying publication. Her major exhibition on Italian fashion, along with a corresponding publication, opens at the Museum in April, 2014. Sonnet has published and lectured widely on varied aspects of fashion design. Before joining the V&A, Sonnet received her MA in the history of dress from London’s Courtauld Institute after working as a fashion buyer in New York.

Kate Strasdin: After working in a number of dress and textile museums, I embarked upon a PhD under the supervision of Professor Maria Hayward at the University of Southampton in 2007 as a part time student. I completed the project in September 2013 and successfully defended my thesis in December 2013. The project is an analysis of the surviving garments of Queen Alexandra (1844-1925) which form part of different museum collections around the world.  I am an Associate Lecturer at Falmouth University, teaching fashion, textile and performance sportswear design students in the history and theory of dress.  As an object based historian, I enjoy a part time post as Hon. Deputy Curator with the Totnes Fashion and Textile Museum, changing exhibitions annually.  I am an accredited lecturer for the National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies, presenting lectures on a number of dress-based themes both in the UK and internationally.  In 2011 I won the Veronika Gervers Fellowship, allowing me to work with the garments associated with Queen Alexandra in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto and have been the recipient of both the Keith Ponting Bursary from the Fashion Museum, Bath and a Design History Society award.

Isabel Catarina Suzart Argolo graduated in Literature at Catholic University and Visual Arts, at the School of Fine Arts in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, and holds a Ph.D. from the  Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain. She teaches at two faculties in Salvador, one is the School of Fine Arts (UFBa), in which acts in the direction of scientific research and projects in the field of surface design. Recently served as advisor in the research and development of projects and products for fashion creation, among them, “Skin: cartographies of time” presented at the Dance’s Department of the Federal University of Bahia. She’s an active member of the research group “Design, sustainability and social responsibility,” of the Post-graduation program of the Fine Arts School at UFBA, where she devoting herself also to the approaches related to cultural identity, aesthetics, anthropological, sociological, costume and fashion aspects. As an artist, presented the solo exhibition “Art, fashion and identity”, in Spain (2010), and comes some years ago, producing installations using that use costume as support creating.

Stina Teilmann-Lock holds a PhD in comparative literature. She is the author of British and French Copyright: A Historical Account of Aesthetic Implications (Copenhagen, 2009), co-editor of Art and Law: The Copyright Debate (Copenhagen, 2005) and Ophavsretten i Krise (Copenhagen, 2011) and has published numerous articles on copyright, art and design. She has worked as a patent administrator, has held a Carlsberg postdoctoral fellowship at the Danish Design School, a research fellowship at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen and is now associate professor of design at the University of Southern Denmark. Her research interests include fashion, design, aesthetic theory and intellectual property law.

Co-presenter:  

• Trine Petersen Brun

Giulia Tonucci is currently based in Paris, where she’s carrying on part of her research at the Université Paris VIII Vincennes – Saint-Denisas. She is attending a PhD on an innovative project about the interactions between performing arts, digital technologies and fashion. Performed academic studies at the Universities of Pisa, London and Bologna. She got the MA degree in “Theatrical studies with a thesis on the performative presence in digital performances, working with the group of research DAP-Lab, headed by Johannes Birringer and based at Brunel University of West London. Right now she’s collaborating with different journals, e.g. Art’O, Digicult and Antropologia e Teatro. She was part of editorial staffs of theatrical reviews such as SD-Scienze Diagonali (2011) and Altre Velocità (2010). In addition to the theoretical researches she’s worked in the organization of some important performing art festivals such as: VIE – Scena Contemporanea Festival (ERT),Netmage (Xing, Bologna) and IPERCORPO (Città di Ebla).

Olga Vassilieva-Codognet was born in Saint Petersburg where she graduated as a textile engineer. She then moved to Paris to study with Michel Pastoureau at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, where she is currently completing her PhD on Fortune’s iconography (XI–XVI c.). She is a member of the Society for Emblem Studies and of the CIETA (Centre International d’Étude des Textiles Anciens) and she has written more than a dozen papers on heraldry and emblems, dress, portraits, medieval and modern iconography. She co-organised with Michel Pastoureau the international colloquium  ‘Des signes dans l’image : usages et fonctions de l’attribut dans l’iconographie médiévale’ (Brepols, in press).

Maria Cristina Volpi Nacif: I am a fashion historian and associate professor of art history at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro [Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro/ UFRJ] and a former Head of the Postgraduate Program in Visual Arts (2010-2012) at the same University. I´m work on late 19th early 20th C. Brazilian fashion and my areas of interest are the history and historiography of clothing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; the study of clothing systems and their agents (images and objects); art and fashion movements; and clothing, appearance, gender and identity within a historical perspective. I have published several book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals. Among my recent publication are: [1] As roupas pelo avesso: cultura material e história social do vestuário. [The clothes inside out: material culture and social history of clothing.] Dobras, v.7. Barueri, São Paulo, 2014. Pp.71 – 79. [2] The artist, the dandy and men’s fashion in the Belle-Époque in Rio. BONADIO, M. C., SURIANI, A. C. (ed.) Film, Fashion & Consumption, vol. 2 (n. 3), London: Intellect Limited, 2013. Pp. 287-298 (in press). [3] Cosmopolitismo e vestuário masculino na Belle Époque no Rio de Janeiro. [Cosmopolitanism and menswear in Belle Époque in Rio de Janeiro.] TAVORA, M. L., BATHOLOMEU, C. (ed.) Arte & Ensaio (UFRJ) v.25, Rio de Janeiro: 2013. Pp.66 – 77. [4]Os leques da Coleção Ferreira das Neves. [The Ferreira das Neves Collection’s fan] PINHEIRO, A. (org.) Revista Vox Musei Arte e Património, v.1, Lisboa, Portugal, 2013. Pp.298 – 310. [5] Fontes para o estudo da indumentária: o Centro de Referência Têxtil/Vestuário.[ Sources for the study of the clothing: the Reference Center Textile / Clothing] MELLO, C. M. M. (ed.) Revista Interfaces (UFRJ), v.II, Rio de Janeiro, 2012.Pp.159 – 173.

Kimberly Wahl is an Associate Professor in the School of Fashion at Ryerson University, Canada.  She holds a PhD in Art History from Queen’s University, where her dissertation focused on late nineteenth-century Aesthetic Dress in the context of British visual culture and Aestheticism.  Her current area of research focuses on the intersections between academic Feminism and the histories and theories of fashion, from the late nineteenth century to the present.  She has published articles on dress reform and Aestheticism as well as selected topics in fashion photography and the print culture of the nineteenth century.   Her first book Dressed as in a Painting: Women and British Aestheticism in an age of Reform was recently published by the University Press of New England in July 2013. 

Lauren Whitley is curator in the Department of Textile and Fashion Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where she helps manage a collection of 45,000 textiles, costumes, and fashion illustrations. She received her B.A. in Art History from Trinity College, and her M.A. in Museum Studies: Historic Textiles and Dress from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. Her area of focus is nineteenth and twentieth-century textiles and dress. Since joining the MFA in 1992, she has curated a number of exhibitions including, most recently, Hippie Chic (2013), Icons of Style: Fashion Makers, Models, and Images (2012), Walk this Way (2008), High Style and Hoop Skirts: 1850s Fashions (2004), and In the Classical Mode: Neoclassical Fashions (1998).  Ms. Whitley has published in the journals of the Costume Society of America and the Textile Society of America, and contributed essays to The Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion, Quilts of Gees Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt, and Fashion Show: Paris Style.