Researchers & Collaborators
Dr Katherine Appleford
Co-Principle Investigator
Dr Katherine Appleford is a Lecturer in Fashion and Creative Industries at King's College London and leading academic in the Sociology of Fashion in the UK.
She has previously worked at the University for the Creative Arts, as Subject Lead for MA in Fashion Business and Management, and was Course Lead for Sociology at Kingston University London. She has also lectured at The London College of Fashion at the University of the Arts London, University of Winchester, University of Surrey, and University of Durham.
Dr Appleford's research centres on fashion and identity, and her monograph Classifying Fashion, Fashioning Class: Making Sense of Women's Practices, Perceptions and Tastes (2020, Routledge) considers how British women’s everyday fashion practices mobilise class. She has also published research which explores the role celebrity culture on racialised beauty ideals and notions of respectability, and the role of class in arts education. Her current research considers class distinctions in mothers' everyday shopping practices, post-COVID19.
Dr J C Kristensen
Co-Principle Investigator
Dr Kristensen is an award-winning design researcher whose work bridges the academic and commercial worlds.
She is the Academic Portfolio Lead for Design in the School of Design + Creative Industries at University of Greenwich, where she directs, manages and designs industry-leading design educational programmes.
She has previously worked at the University for the Creative Arts, Central St. Martins University of the Arts London, Goldsmiths University of London, Royal College of Art, University of Westminster and Kingston School of Art.
As commercial cultural research director, Dr Kristensen brings her expertise in qualitative research, cultural semiotics, futures, trends, and forecasting to work for blue-chip clients to help them develop new products, services and strategies which are socially impactful, commercially successful and foster inclusivity.
Dr Kristensen’s academic research is centred around critical materialities, making images and objects speak through different disciplinary practices across visual and material culture. Her current project is called The Coral Notes, and is built on a previous critical materialities project on slime, exploring its cultural meanings and its design histories, which was called Slime Diaries.
Dr Beth Williamson
Associate Independent Researcher
Dr Beth Williamson is an independent art historian whose research focuses on post-war art in Britain. She is particularly interested in the history of art education and has written monographs on the Austrian art theorist Anton Ehrenzweig and the Scottish artist and teacher William Johnstone. She regularly writes catalogue essays, as well as book and exhibition reviews, and is always curious to spot the resonances between historical and contemporary practice.