Dress in Context

Research Centre

Dress in a Time of Crisis – Speakers

Dr Alison Matthews David

Dr. Alison Matthews David is an Associate Professor in the School of Fashion, Ryerson University. She was awarded a doctorate from Stanford University, has published on nineteenth-century dress and material culture, and launched the open access journal Fashion Studies with Dr. Ben Barry in 2018. Her most recent research project, Fashion Victims, looked at how clothing physically harmed the health of its makers and wearers. It was published as a book in 2015, was a co-curated exhibition at the Bata Shoe Museum from 2014-2018, and as of April 2019 a co-authored book for children 9-12 called Killer Style. Her current project, Unraveling Crime: A Forensic History of Fashion, investigates the theme of crime and clothing as weapon, evidence, and disguise. Unraveling Crime’s first outcome is as a collaborative exhibition in May 2021 on crime and footwear co-curated with Elizabeth Semmelhack, Senior Curator of the Bata Shoe Museum and entitled Exhibit A.  

Lorraine Smith

Lorraine H Smith is an independent researcher with a primary focus on twentieth century underwear and textiles. She has presented at academic conferences and as part of public programmes at the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Courtauld Institute of Art, and the M&S Company Archive. She is also a founding member of The Underpinnings Museum team.

Stella Claxton

Stella Claxton is a Senior Lecturer at Nottingham Trent University within the Fashion Management, Marketing and Communication subject area. Stella worked in the fashion industry for many years in design, product development and sourcing. She is a member of the University’s Clothing Sustainability Research group with specific interests in sustainable fashion design and clothing durability. In 2018 she gave evidence to the UK Government enquiry into the Sustainability of the Fashion Industry on behalf of NTU. 

Dr Dion Terrelonge

Dr Dion Terrelonge, Child Psychologist and fashion psychology researcher, is a practitioner Psychologist specialising in group dynamics, restorative practice and supervision. Skilled in qualitative and quantitative research, consultation, therapeutic work and assessment, including standardised, dynamic and projective. She is also interested in the link between personal style, self-expression, and wellbeing. Trained in personal styling and advocating the new approach of person-centred styling, drawing on positive psychology, transactional psychology, coaching and enclothed cognition. 

Professor David Inglis

David Inglis is Professor of Sociology at the University of Helsinki. Before that, he was Professor of Sociology at the University of Exeter and the University of Aberdeen. He holds degrees from the Universities of Cambridge and York. He writes in the areas of cultural sociology (including the sociology of fashions), globalization studies, historical sociology, food and drink studies, and social theory, modern and classical. He has written and edited various books in these areas, such as Confronting Culture (Polity), Culture and Everyday Life (Routledge), The Sociology of Art: Ways of Seeing (Palgrave), An Invitation to Social Theory, The Sage Handbook of Cultural Sociology, The Routledge International Handbook of Veils and Veiling Practices, and most recently The Globalization of Wine (Bloomsbury). Various books have been translated into Arabic and Chinese. He is founding editor of the Sage journal Cultural Sociology. His main current research concerns transformations in wine worlds, and the interplay of alcohol and fashion. Other ongoing areas of interest include the sociology of Brexit, and of masks and masking. In his spare time, he drinks obscure wines of the kind liked by hipsters, and he calls this activity “research”.