BA, MAcc, MA (Fashion), PhD Candidate
I am the Acting Curator/Coordinator of the Ryerson University Fashion Research Collection where I am working to re-establish and re-orient the collection as a teaching resource within the School of Fashion. This collection of several thousand garments and accessories was founded in 1981 and includes many important couture labels as well as labels from Canadian fashion history. In 2012, I received a grant of $12,000 to photograph and digitize the key pieces in the Collection.
My key areas of research relate to costume history and fashion in the museum. I am keenly interested in Canadian fashion history, the embodiment of memory in clothing, and the history of fashion photography.
I edited two special issues of The Costume Journal, and also undertook a redesign of this bi-annual publication in order to modernize and refocus it to celebrate Canadian fashion and original research in dress.
I am also a writer who is inspired by the intersection of fashion, art and history. I have contributed articles to Dress; The Journal of Curatorial Studies; Catwalk: The Journal of Fashion, Beauty and Style; Fashion Projects, The Costume Journal, The Globe and Mail; Worn; Vintage and Modern; Worn Through and other journals. My photos have appeared in the Toronto Star and Burda Publications. I recently published The Dress Detective: A Practical Guide to Object-based Research in Fashion with Bloomsbury Academic.
I am currently working on my PhD in art history.
Last updated: February 2016