Materiality, Fashion and Footwear
Relevant and impactful teaching is informed by good quality research that investigates and critiques past, present and emerging concerns. My research in the fields of sociology and anthropology informs the ways I teach undergraduate fashion, textiles and accessories design students. I take a material culture approach to explore the ways we engage with materials and artefacts in a social and cultural context. My research contributes towards culturally, sociologically and ecologically sustainable impacts within consumer culture and higher education.
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The Affordances of Affordance Theory for Sustainable Design Pedagogy
How can Gibson’s seminal ‘affordance theory’ be used to inform a material-driven approach to design that reconceptualises unconventional or ‘waste’ materials as a creative resource?
2020-present
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This is Not a Shoe: An Exploration of the Co-Constitutive Relationship Between Representations and Embodied Experiences of Shoes
Doctoral research using Clarks Originals shoes to investigate the relationships between popular representations and embodied experiences of fashion and footwear in processes of being and becoming.
2010-2016 (funded by the ESRC)
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If the Shoe Fits: Footwear Identity and Transition
Overview of the ESRC-funded research project in the Department of Sociological Studies at the University of Sheffield.
2010-2013 (funded by the ESRC)
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Larger Than Life
An investigation into the impacts of digital technologies on perceptions of death, mortality and the after-life with a particular focus on the continued virtual existence of deceased popular media personalities.
2010 (published 2013)