Read our FAQs to decide which is the right course for you

Posted on October 31, 2022 by Megha Rajguru Standard Respond

At Brighton we offer two degrees in this programme area: a Fashion and Design History course and an Art History and Visual Culture course – find out more from lecturer Dr Veronica Isaac about them and what and how you’ll learn.

Here, lecturer Veronica Issac, who has a background in the museum sector and worked for the Department of Theatre and Performance at the V&A Museum for over 10 years, answers key questions on what you can expect from a degree at the University of Brighton.

I haven’t studied history of art or fashion before. Does this matter?

No! We’re looking for students who are excited to learn and open to engaging with news ideas and sources. We also inspired by the different perspectives and knowledge everyone brings to the course.

Should I apply for the Fashion and Design History course or the Art History and Visual Culture course – what are they key differences?

If you already know that you want to specialise in Fashion and Design History then this is one of very few BA courses in which you’ll have the opportunity to do so. Choosing this course will give you access to modules which focus specifically on debates and research connected with fashion, dress and textiles. If you’re not certain, you could actually choose either, as there’s still enough flexibility when you choose option modules in Level 5 (Year 2) to decide to study a module from the Fashion and Design History, or the Art History and Visual Culture course – so there’s scope to build up a range of experience in both areas.

What should I put in my personal statement / cover letter?

We want to know about you and why you want to study at Brighton. What interests you about the course? Is there anything specific you hope to learn or experience? Is there a particular reason you want to study in Brighton (the area, the teaching staff, the things you will have the opportunity to learn about). We’re also keen to understand what experience and ideas you will bring to the course – What do you enjoy studying? What life experience do you have which might be relevant to the course? Do you write, draw, make? All these skills – and more – are relevant and helpful. Do you have any longer term ambitions which this course might help you to achieve? We want to know this course is a good fit for you, and that you’ll enjoying growing and developing during your time here. One of our students has written a blog post sharing tips based on their experience of writing a personal statement, which you can read here. We also have a dedicated page here on our website about this.

Is a placement part of the course?

There is the opportunity to undertake a 30 hour placement with an organisation from the third sector or public service sector (not for profit) as part of the course. You are matched with a host (generally from the local area and connected with arts and heritage) and have a clearly defined role and focus for your placement. The aim of the placement is to give you the chance to gain professional skills which will boost your employability. They also you a great chance to learn about which areas of work you enjoy and where your strengths lie.

How is the course taught?

The courses are taught through a combination of lectures (delivered by staff and inspired by their ongoing research), seminars (discussions in smaller groups with fellow students, often with some preparatory reading or research tasks) and workshops which often involve object handling (led by staff and external specialists and focussed on gaining specific training or skills, or experimenting with particular research methods). You will also have the opportunity to go on class visits to relevant art galleries, museums and heritage sites.

What introductory reading do you recommend?

There’s nothing specific you need to read to be ready to study here, but if you’re interested in Fashion and Design History, there are wonderful resources online you can explore – Google Arts and Culture https://artsandculture.google.com/ and the Fashion History Timeline https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/. It’s hard to choose a specific book as it would depend so much on whether there was a particular time period, or aspect of fashion which interested you, but some books I love are: The Birth of Cool, by Carol Tulloch and Dress in the Age of Jane Austen: Regency Fashion, by Hilary Davidson. If you’re keen for further recommendations, ask us at open days and we’ll happily provide you with a list! You’ll also have access to fantastic range of texts in the library when you study here and plenty of time to read more about your subject.

How soon after I apply will I know if I have a place? –

Universities are due to respond to applications submitted by 26 January 2022. This is the generic deadline although we aim to respond as soon as possible. UCAS Clearing opens on the 5 July 2022, this is when students who have not already received an offer from us may contact us to check if there are still vacancies and apply through clearing to be considered for a place.

What I Learnt About Street Style in Japan

Posted on June 6, 2018 by Harriet Atkinson Standard Respond

Second year student Eleanor Medhurst on visiting Tokyo’s Harajuku district to research street style

Fig. 1. Me in the back streets of Harajuku. Personal photograph from the author. 30th March 2018.

Since starting on the Fashion and Dress History course at Brighton in 2016, I’ve done a fair amount of research into street style and subcultures, their fashions and their theories. My primary interest in this topic has always been the clothing from the streets of Harajuku in Tokyo, though I’ve focused on other areas in much of my research. I’ve written about street style and vintage clothing on the streets of Brighton; I’ve looked at subcultural theory by the likes of Stuart Hall and Dick Hebdige in relation to Colin MacInnes’ book Absolute Beginners; I’ve also just finished an essay about cartoon imagery in Harajuku “kawaii.”

This background interest, as well as an overall appreciation for the culture of Harajuku, meant that when I visited Tokyo over the Easter break I had an incredible experience. I had the chance to see the source of so many styles that I have admired and partaken in, and appreciate the culture and the streets from which they grew.

Many people, when visiting Harajuku, believe that it only consists of the main street, Takeshita Dori. These same people, when confronted with the tourist-heavy inauthenticity of the main drag, often leave disappointed. Harajuku street style appears to be a thing of the past, overtaken by the curious lenses of tourist cameras and the entrepreneuring efforts of the Disney store and McDonalds, both of which have locations on Takeshita Dori. However, move away from the crowds and Harajuku is still very much alive.

Fig 2. 6% Doki Doki in Harajuku. Personal photograph by author. April 2018.

Wandering the back streets of Harajuku was my favourite part of my entire trip to Japan. Quieter than so many parts of Tokyo, and yet buzzing with energy, I felt comfortable in my own sartorial expression as well as in the appreciation of others’. I remember standing by one of Japan’s many infamous vending machines (shopping bags in one hand, google maps open on my phone in the other) and feeling comfortable in myself in a way that is hard to find in too many places outside of, of course, Brighton. This is a feeling that the young people who spend time in Harajuku have cultivated themselves, with their subcultural communities and the shops that have emerged with them. Much like in subcultural London in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the shops that provide the clothing with which subcultural style builds its outfits are the bread and butter of subcultural fashion communities. Where shops such as Vivienne Westwood’s SEX and Granny Takes a Trip on the King’s Road might have defined the street style shopping landscape in London, in Harajuku and wider Tokyo the scene is ruled by stores that are much cuter in nature. Kawaii giant 6% Doki Doki is a hub for “Decora” style – a fashion that involves as many bright colours, accessories, hair clips and cute motifs as possible. It is the epitome of “J-fashion” in the eyes of many, and climbing up its pink-and-yellow staircase to the shop on the second floor was the sure sign that I was in Harajuku.

Fig 3. Hikapu Dayo in Swankiss, Shibuya 109. @Hikapudayo on Instagram. 5th March 2018. Web. 29th May 2018.

Other prominent shops include shops for the Lolita subculture (a style that takes inspiration from French Rococo fashions and Victorian dolls, and despite the name, is unrelated to Nabokov’s novel): Baby the Stars Shine Bright, Angelic Pretty and Metamorphose. These shops do not allow photography, to avoid the novelty that is often made of the style by tourists. Notably, there’s also the shopping centre just south of Harajuku itself and right next to the famously busy Shibuya Crossing, Shibuya 109. Shibuya 109 is renowned for being home to key influencers in Tokyo subcultures, whether those be the shops within it or the shopgirls that work there. The culture of shopgirls-as-style-icons in J-fashion is also often seen as a thing of the past – and yet, models and kawaii icons such as Hikapu Dayo still work within the building.

Harajuku and surrounding areas in Tokyo still have a strong subcultural presence. This continues even in the face of its commodification by the tourist industry and big-name brands. The backstreets belong to the people who walk them – and as long as the outsiders stick to the main drag of Takeshita Dori, then the culture continues to thrive.

For me, seeing such a specific subcultural location has solidified the subcultural theories that I have researched. It has let them be realised in the reflection of real people and real clothes rather than in histories, photographs, and pages of books. I intend to take this experience with me in my studies – possibly even in my dissertation, which will explore, to an extent, the subversion of the feminine in subcultures such as those mentioned here.

From Brighton to LA

Posted on April 30, 2018 by Harriet Atkinson Standard Respond

BA (Hons) History of Design, Culture and Society grad 2015 Veronika Zeleznaja reflects on life, work and study since graduating from Brighton

Fig 1. Charles and Ray Eames House (photograph by author).

I completed a BA (Hons) in History of Design, Culture and Society at the University of Brighton in 2015 and just a few months ago I graduated from University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martins’ Culture, Criticism and Curation postgraduate programme. Following my MA, I have relocated to Los Angeles, California.

At Brighton, my studies encouraged an interdisciplinary approach to form and culture. I applied a range of critical approaches to the study of the design and consumption of objects, from one-off pieces to everyday goods, starting in the mid-eighteenth century and running through to the present day. My BA dissertation, on mid-century American modernism in Forbidden Planet, explored how design is intimately bound up with the cultural, social and economic norms of its day. The dissertation looked at the connection between design, architecture and media, and how that science fiction film, and others of its day, reflected increased American leadership in the 1950s and promoted and propagandized its values and lifestyle. It drew on my fascination with the Californian Case Study Houses, a post-World War II modernist residential architecture project, discovered through the Making the Modern Home: Design, Domesticity and Discourse 1870 to the present module (taught by Jeremy Aynsley). It evolved beyond an academic interest when I visited the Eames House in California (Fig 1.), and relates to my recent move to Los Angeles.

After my studies at Brighton, I took a gap year and returned to my home country, Lithuania, and undertook an internship in the LIMIS (Lithuanian Integral Museum Information System) department at the Lithuanian Art Museum, helping to create a common digital archive of museum collections across Lithuania. I was responsible for digitising, managing and editing images to be published online, proofreading and copy-editing as well as working with the LIMIS database.

I did not take the usual route to jobs and internships through applications and posted vacancies online. Instead, I showed up in person at the institution of my interest and offered my candidature directly. This approach not only resulted in the offer of a position but also led to some useful contacts, who have offered sound advice along the way. Furthermore, this internship gave me an opportunity to engage with issues and strategies in presenting cultural heritage objects, and furthered my interest in how public relations relates to curation, presentation, and public engagement in art. It resulted in enrolment to the Public Relations MA programme at the University of the Arts London. After the first term, I realised that my interest in the issues surrounding the presentation of culture in public and social spaces, in what I thought of as the PR corner of the art world, were not addressed in the curriculum. So I switched to the Culture, Criticism and Curation course at Central Saint Martins, aimed at candidates with an interest in research and its application in organising cultural events. The programme offered a critical and historical framework for engaging with the culture that I found resonated with me, due to strong theory foundations in my BA. This MA course emphasized a hands-on teaching method and was mainly structured on ‘live’ projects used as a testing-ground. Led by students but done in partnership with external organisations, these projects taught me how to collaborate effectively.

Fig. 2. Unknown Quantities work in progress (photograph by author).

After putting up an archive-based group exhibition as one of the first assignments, for my final project I chose to address a series of seminars on art criticism within the MA programme and joined the editorial board of Unknown Quantities, an annual collaborative project developed by MA Culture, Criticism and Curation and MA Graphic Communication Design students. Our group created an experimental concept-based physical publication that set out to contribute to cultural criticism and communication design, bringing together contributions from the team and direct external commissions from artists, writers and practitioners (Figs 2 and 3).

For my MA thesis, I examined the interplay of political, economic, cultural, and social forces that triggered interest in Russian art abroad, specifically in London, as well as curatorial choices around national art for international export. The dissertation explored how museums and art institutions have developed their roles as elements of soft power, as sites able to produce a favourable image of a country, by functioning as platforms for cultural display and exchange.

Now I have relocated to America. Los Angeles has a thriving art scene and I hope to put both of my degrees to excellent use here.

Fig 3. Unknown Quantities work in progress (photograph by author).

Irving Penn at the Grand Palais, Paris

Posted on March 10, 2018 by Harriet Atkinson Standard Respond

Second year Fashion and Dress History student Hon Yan Lau discusses visiting a retrospective of the work of photographer Irving Penn

Irving Penn on a shoot

Nine of the covers Penn did for Vogue during his 66 years working with the magazine

Over the Christmas break, I visited the best exhibition I have ever seen. This was the touring work of famed American fashion photographer, Irving Penn (1917-2009). The exhibition, held at Paris’s Grand Palais, was organized by The Réunion des musées nationaux in France- Grand Palais with The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, in conjunction with the Irving Penn Foundation. It was the first major retrospective of Penn’s seventy year career since his death in 2009 and the 235 photographic prints provided insights into his vision, work and life.

Pablo Picasso, Cannes, 1957 by Irving Penn

In the exhibition, the curators focused on eleven aspects of his career: ‘still life and early street photography’, ‘existential portraits’ (1947-1948), ‘In Vogue’ (1947-1951), ‘Cuzco’ (1948), ‘Small Trades’ (1950-1951), ‘Classic Portraits’ (1948-1962), ‘Nudes’ (1949-1950), ‘Worlds in a Small Room’, ‘Cigarettes’, ‘Late Still Life’ and ‘Time Capsules’. Penn’s works left a significant impact both on the fashion world and on photography and the exhibition highlighted his methods of working. Before he shot his sitters, for example, he would have a long conversation with them in order to put them at ease and to get the best out of them. He said: “Sensitive people faced with the prospect of a camera portrait put on a face they think is one they would like to show the world […] Very often what lies behind the facade is rare and more wonderful than the subject knows or dares to believe”.

Yves Saint Laurent, Paris, 1957

The existential portraits section – my favourite part of the exhibition – included many familiar faces such as boxing legend Joe Louis, Audrey Hepburn, Yves Saint Laurent, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali. Penn converted colour photos to black and white in order to bring out the sitters’ emotion and expression, saying: “A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart, and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it; it is, in one word, effective.”

Irving Penn was shown at the Grand Palais from 21 September 2017 to 29 January 2018

Pre-Raphaelites, hippies and historical revivalism

Posted on February 18, 2018 by Harriet Atkinson Standard Respond

4. Model in an Ossie Clark dress, reclining on a settee covered in the original William Morris’ Bird Design. Photographed by John Kelly at Wightwick Manor for Vanity Fair, May 1970. Scanned by Miss Peelpants.

Fashion and Dress History BA (Hons) graduate (2017) Elina Ivanov reports on being shortlisted for the prestigious Association for Art History essay prize

1. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. A Sea-Spell, 1875-77. Oil on canvas. 111.5 x 93 cm. Fogg Museum /Harvard Art Museums, Massachusetts, USA. Courtesy of www.harvardartmuseums.org

When the second year of my studies came to its end, I did not immediately have a clear idea for my final year dissertation topic. I did know that, ideally, I would want to incorporate aspects of art history into a topic centred on fashion, in the same way that in studying Fashion and Dress History we had extensively studied its relationship with broader culture and the history of art and design. Throughout my studies, I had held a particularly keen interest in the dress practices of women in artistic circles and subcultural groups from the nineteenth century onwards. The women associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement were something I was curious to look into for a long time. At the same time I wanted to draw my research closer to the modern day, and to look at the much discussed subject of Pre-Raphaelite women from a fresher angle. I soon had the idea of doing this by basing my research in the historical revivalism typical to the fashion imagery of the late 1960s and early 1970s, noting its visual correlations to Pre-Raphaelite images of women a century earlier (see images 1-2 and 3-4).

2. Nicky Samuel wearing a dress by Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell for British Vogue, September 1971. Photographed by Norman Parkinson. Courtesy of theredlist.com

Additionally, I wanted to bring in the influence of the Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic and spirit over wider hippie culture, which was heavily represented throughout popular culture of the time, particularly in popular music. The same kind of lyrical and visual evocations of women seemed to accompany hippie culture as had been typical to the Pre-Raphaelites a century earlier. In my dissertation I delved into this particular fabled feminine stereotype which, while drawing from history and its conventional images of soft and submissive femininity, seemed regularly to emerge in tandem with seemingly progressive, bohemian cultural movements. Throughout the course of my research process I kept encountering one theme after another, the discussion of which seemed to be crucial in order to present a thoroughly informed analysis of this ‘Pre-Raphaelite femininity’, which could so often be found pictured in Western visual culture since at least the mid-nineteenth century. There was the matter of femininity, feminism, fashion, art, historical revivalism, hippie culture, popular music, etc., etc.… I confess that at times it was difficult even for me to keep track of what I was actually arguing.

3. John William Waterhouse. Windswept, 1903. Oil on canvas. 114.3 x 78.7 cm. Private collection. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Ultimately, however, the general theme which rang out from all the different parts of my research was the idea of myth, in two ways. Firstly, in the sense of this mythical idea of feminine beauty, taking shape in images of women as sprites, enchantresses and medieval maidens, and secondly, in the sense of the very concept of femininity being a cultural myth itself; an idea recurrently discussed within works of feminist gender theory. At the core of my dissertation were female musicians of the 1960s and 70s who often seemed to encapsulate this timeless image of women as mythical creatures, especially insofar as this was evident in the style, songs and persona of musician Stevie Nicks. As a highly successful woman in a field which has historically favoured men and the male perspective, Nicks functioned as the perfect way to prove, pinpoint and bring together the larger themes discussed in my dissertation.

4. Model in an Ossie Clark dress, reclining on a settee covered in the original William Morris’ Bird Design. Photographed by John Kelly at Wightwick Manor for Vanity Fair, May 1970. Scanned by Miss Peelpants.

While my dissertation largely discussed fashion, dress and style, it turned out to be a broader examination of visual culture and popular representations of gender. Having at times seemed like a dauntingly difficult task, handing in the finished dissertation felt fantastic and I was ultimately very happy with the end result. Furthermore, my dissertation supervisor, Annebella Pollen, who had been a tremendous help throughout the process of writing and editing it, offered to nominate my work for the annual dissertation prize held by the Association for Art History, an organisation dedicated to advocating the study of the subject. I was delighted to learn recently that my work had been selected as the runner-up for the 2017 prize. It felt especially rewarding to receive recognition from a renowned body such as the AAH, whose annual conference will be held at the University of Brighton in 2019.

Having received such positive feedback for my dissertation from my tutors as well as the AAH has been encouraging in terms of applying for further study, with the aim of building a career in fashion curation. Since graduating from the University of Brighton, I have done volunteer work at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London, alongside working in fashion retail. While I have opted for a break from academia for the present year, I am applying for a number of Master’s degrees for the coming autumn. Hopefully, having been shortlisted for the AAH dissertation prize will be helpful in terms of applying for further study as well as, eventually, in securing future employment.

Read Elina Ivanov’s dissertation: ‘“West Coast Ophelia”: Stevie Nicks and Representations of Pre-Raphaelite Femininity in Fashion and Rock Music of the 1960-70s’ here.

The 2019 Association for Art Historians Annual Conference will be held at University of Brighton. The Call for Sessions is here.

Visiting Berlin: art, politics and national identity

Posted on February 13, 2018 by Harriet Atkinson Standard Respond

Figure 2: Entrance to Amazonas Shopping Centre

Second year BA (Hons) Visual Culture student Ella Winning on an eye-opening course trip to Germany

Figure 1: Interior of Hamburger Bahnhof

Back in November, twelve of my course mates and I spent five days in Berlin as part of the second-year Trip to Europe module. During this time, we visited many of the famous tourist sights such as the Reichstag, Berlin Wall and the Bauhaus Archive, as well as galleries and museums in the city.

One place that particularly caught my attention was the Hamburger Bahnhof; a contemporary art museum situated in the west of Berlin. Hosting a collection of modern art works by the likes of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Anselm Kiefer, the exhibition I was most drawn to was the Preis der Nationalgalerie (29 September 2017 – 14 January 2018). This is a biennial opportunity for four artists under the age of 30 who live and work in Berlin to exhibit their work in a group exhibition at the Museum. Additionally, one of them is chosen to be the focus of a solo show and publication. The most recent shortlisters were Sol Calero, Iman Issa, Jumana Manna, and Angieska Polska.

Figure 2: Entrance to Amazonas Shopping Centre

As part of the show, Venezuelan-born multidisciplinary artist Sol Calero exhibited her interactive installation, Amazonas Shopping Center; a brightly coloured amalgamation of a selection of her works from the past five years. Throughout her work, the artist explores themes of national identity and ethnicity, especially in terms of her own, Latino background. Calero does this through her incorporation of various features of Latin culture; her installation includes a hairdressing salon (background of figure 2), travel bureau, consisting of a currency exchange kiosk and travel agency desk (mid and foreground of figure 2), cybercafé, school, and a salsa dance studio and cinema where her telenovela, Desde el Jardin, plays (figure 3).

While Calero is frequently labelled as a ‘Latin’ artist, the artist and her fellow prize entrants reject the practice of describing of them and their work in terms of their ethnicity. In a statement released to Artnet News, the artists

Figure 3: Amazonas Shopping Center Installation views

explained that they felt their minority backgrounds as immigrants and as women were ‘emphasized much more heavily than the content of their work’ during promotions and advertising for the exhibition.[1] I found this particularly interesting; at a time of changing attitudes towards race in terms of politics (and therefore society), is it even relevant for the nationalities of the artists to be highlighted? Is exercising of nationality allowing pride in ‘otherness’, or is it a tool of isolation which discourages inclusion?

Some might argue that the Museum was simply highlighting diversity in the selection of artists, showing the all-encompassing attitudes towards art, while others (agreeing with the artists themselves) may perhaps argue that the Museum’s focus on the ‘otherness’ of the four women was perhaps a ‘self-congratulatory use of diversity as a public relations tool’[2] for the Hamburger Bahnhof, prohibiting the artists from fully integrating into the German art world.

It can be assumed that the Museum, along with many other organisations across Germany, wish to reject the racist politics that made a resurgence at the start of the twenty-first century, along with far-right intolerance emerging around the globe in the modern day. The renunciation of these politics can clearly be seen in modern German culture; one example being Angela Merkel’s pioneering and controversial open border policy introduced in 2015. [3] It could be argued that, with similar intentions to Merkel, the Museum has consciously tried to denounce intolerance by highlighting or celebrating the differences of the entrants to those of the past. Others might find it patronising and a form of discouraging inclusion to the ‘German’ art world.

Figure 4: Amazonas Shopping Center Installation views

I found this trip interesting because it opened my eyes to this issue of nationality and its relevance in the culture not only of Berlin, but of the contemporary world; a topic which will continue to be particularly important in the years to come.

[1] Kate Brown, “These Four Artists Were Nominated for Germany’s Foremost Art Prize—and Now They’re Denouncing It” ArtNet News.

[2] Brown, “These Four Artists Were Nominated for Germany’s Foremost Art Prize—and Now They’re Denouncing It”

[3] Reuters in Berlin “Merkel: no regrets over refugee policy despite political cost” Guardian. Web. 27 Aug, 2017.

Working for the National Trust

Posted on February 6, 2018 by Harriet Atkinson Standard Respond

Fig 5. View from the house (image by the author)

Final year BA (Hons) Fashion and Dress History student Maria Purnell on working at the National Trust property, Standen House and Gardens.

Fig 1. Standen House (image by author)

Normally, balancing a degree with work is hard. However, having the opportunity to work for the National Trust as customer service assistant has allowed me to earn money, learn new skills and provided me with valuable knowledge, not only about the Trust’s purpose, but about the property itself.

Standen House was owned by the Beale family, who lived in London but built Standen as a holiday home, for the much-appreciated clean country air away from the city. What makes this house so special to the Trust is that it is a perfect case study of the Arts and Crafts movement, designed by Philip Webb in collaboration with William Morris. Working at Standen however, isn’t your ‘average’ student job. Upon arrival before the visitors, it is astounding how peaceful and tranquil the gardens can be. The scenery is breathtaking; on a clear day on top of the hill you can see for miles around, overlooking the countless fields and trees. One of the best aspects of working at a country house is how close to nature one can be; on a quiet day one tends to see an abundance of wildlife such as rabbits, squirrels and robins, which are not particularly afraid of humans.

Fig 2. Standen House (image by author)

The majority of the time I work either in reception, scanning the memberships and helping provide information to visitors or, when particularly busy, down in the car park, helping everyone park sensibly and giving people information and directions. This Christmas 2017, however, I got given the opportunity and responsibility to oversee ‘Woodland Santa’, our property’s Christmas grotto. It was an incredible experience and a privilege to be able to take part in such an event. Management put their faith in my abilities to organise elves and make sure Santa had enough presents for the children. Luckily the event was a huge success, and the children and their parents were thrilled with the property and the organisation.

Fig 3. Standen House (image by author)

The knowledge I have gained so far during my time working with the National Trust has helped greatly towards my degree, when understanding art, design, domestic and social history of the period which Standen dates from. Studying a degree in fashion and dress, one has to take into account the significant events within a period that can influence art and design. Standen House and the National Trust have provided me with much knowledge about the creation of this country house and allowed me to pass this on to visitors. Although the job has helped contribute to my degree, I also think the degree has helped me to do my job. Fashion and Dress History has allowed me to gain confidence when talking and explaining theories and historical concepts to fellow students. I have adapted this skill to my job at Standen, by having the confidence to talk to the general public about the history of Standen and the social and cultural histories that it reflects.

Standen House and Garden is at West Hoathly Road, East Grinstead, West Sussex, RH19 4NE

Fig 4. View over the chimneys, Standen House (image by author)

Fig 5. View over the countryside from Standen House (image by the author)

Seminar Style! February 2018

Posted on February 6, 2018 by Harriet Atkinson Standard Respond

In the first of our new monthly series Seminar Style: sartorial snapshots from University of Brighton we report on trends spotted on the University’s campuses

Billy at Grand Parade

Name: Billy

Course: Fashion Design with Business

What: Vintage millennial pink jacquard-weave dress, new-ish black Fila trainers, oversized gold glittery polo neck jumper dress from H&M, fuchsia granny bucket hat from a charity shop and new chunky hoop earrings which cost £1 from Peckham.

Style influences: “wacky older ladies”

Instagram: @btempestradical

Becoming a curator

Posted on January 31, 2018 by Harriet Atkinson Standard Respond

Image 1: 1950s sateen and lastex swimsuit by duCros from the Plume collection

Graduate Iona Farrell describes how passion, persistence and hard work paid off in her quest to find a museum job

Image 1: 1950s sateen and lastex swimsuit by duCros from the Plume collection, Southend Museum (image by author)

I graduated in 2016 from Brighton’s BA (Hons) Fashion and Dress History degree and am now Assistant Curator of Social History at Southend Museum, where I work with the social and local history collection as well as the extensive costume archive. Highlights of the collection include the EKCO radio archive and the Plume swimsuit archive, the largest collection of swimwear in the country.

Brighton provided me with the starting step to pursue a career in museums. What I most enjoyed was how tutors encouraged primary research through visiting archives and using the University’s Dress History Teaching Collection. This approach has proved useful within my current role, where I am often handling artefacts. In a recent donation to the museum I used my undergraduate training to explore a beautiful silk chiffon dress. The garment’s delicate stitching showed the handiwork of a skilled dressmaker, whilst a tiny tear on the fragile hem pointed to a heel catching in the fabric, perhaps when the wearer was dancing. Details like this will inform how the garment is stored, as well as providing a ‘biography’ of an object crucial for creating an exhibition narrative.

Throughout my time at university I loved uncovering stories like these and spent many an hour at St Peter’s House Library using its extensive periodical and microfiche archive. One of my favourite projects was researching the clientele of 1920s couture, which meant poring over the Vogue archive. At times like these I knew I had chosen the right degree! For all current students, I really recommend making the most of these brilliant resources and, being a current Masters student, I must admit I miss the well-stocked shelves of St Peter’s!

Image 2: 1930s guides to Southend from the archive, Southend Museum (image by author)

In my second year I started research for my dissertation, which explored the performance and liminality of 1950s swimsuit pageants. I was keen to ground my writing in archival research and this led me to Southend Museum’s swimwear archive. Being from Southend, it was fantastic to discover the wealth of the collections and this inspired me to start volunteering. A major project I undertook as a volunteer was cataloguing over 500 swimsuits from the Plume collection. Along the way I assisted in exhibition installations and co-curated an exhibition on the history of toys, allowing me to build up a diverse range of skills. Volunteering seems to be a prerequisite for gaining paid work in Museums and local museums truly can provide brilliant opportunities for anyone intent on working in the sector.

After graduation I worked part-time for the University of Essex Library and started a Masters in Museum Studies, a distance-learning course, which has allowed me to continue to work. I must admit studying for a Masters, whilst being in employment and trying to gain entry into the museum sector was a challenge! As many have probably experienced, gaining work in museums can feel like an uphill struggle of endless online application forms. But I must stress that it will happen eventually! Always take whatever opportunities come your way, whether this means volunteering in your local museum like me, or gaining hands on experience within an archive: it’s all relevant experience and it’s fun.

Image 3: Inside the costume store, Southend Museums (image by author).

By volunteering at Southend I was able to build up a large amount of experience and apply for the post of Assistant Curator. It’s fantastic to work now with such a wide-ranging collection and every day is different, whether this be accessioning donations, undertaking exhibition research, taking part in school visits or co-ordinating a touring exhibition. A major responsibility is undertaking the rationalisation of the social history collection, ensuring it is relevant and usable for generations to come. An upcoming project, Snapping the Stiletto will see museums across Essex collaborate to celebrate Essex women and dismantle the ‘Essex Girl’ stereotype. I am excited to build strong partnerships across Essex and the culminating touring exhibition and events across the county are something that people should look out for in the coming year.

It’s fantastic to be in an industry that is so creative, one that has the ability to tell so many stories and to inspire so many people. I am so glad that I applied to Brighton and grateful for the starting step it gave me.

A prize-winning return to university study

Posted on January 18, 2018 by Verity Clarkson Standard Respond

Thinking of studying as a mature student? Wendy Fraser, a finalist studying BA (hons) History of Art and Design shares her experiences and celebrates her recent success.

Figure 1 Wendy Fraser and Andrew Davidson, Celebration Event, University of Brighton Grand Parade. Photograph: Philanthropy Department.

In December, I was honoured to receive the Khadija Saye Visual Culture Breakthrough Award 2016/17 for my performance in the second year of my History of Art and Design degree. Khadija Saye, in whose name the award is presented, was a young photographer from London whose work was included in the Diaspora Pavilion at the 57^th Venice Biennale in 2017. Tragically, Saye died along with her mother in the Grenfell Tower fire, in the twentieth-floor flat that she also used as her photographic studio.

I am thrilled to have received the award, which is validation for the decision I made to come back to university as a mature student. I wrestled with different ideas of what to embark on next in my life, flip-flopping between a business plan or further education. My first experience at university was embarking on a degree in English Literature and History of Art at Edinburgh University when I was 19. At the time, I regretted the choice of Edinburgh as a University and English Lit as my subject but rather than make changes I left at the end of the first year. Retail jobs led to a career in fashion and giftware wholesale as an Account Manager with trade shows and twice-yearly travel to the Far East, which was creative and fun but ultimately intellectually unfulfilling. After the births of my daughters I juggled lots of part-time jobs to fit in with them – selling on Ebay, baking cakes for cafés, a sales role for a Childrenswear brand and supper club hostess.

I knew that I had not reached my academic potential and it would become a regret if I did not act upon it. The degree programme has exceeded my expectations and I have really appreciated learning about so many different aspects of visual and material culture. It has been a joy to have a legitimate reason to visit so many galleries and museums, rather than just as entertainment. My confidence in my subject has grown incrementally, helped in part by my volunteering roles at Charleston and at the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, which we were encouraged to do in first year. Amazingly being a ‘mature’ student hasn’t made me feel awkward and my fellow students have been really inspiring – I have learned a lot from them and really enjoy their company.

The Khadija Saye Visual Culture Breakthrough Award was given at a ceremony in the Sallis Benney Theatre where students from across the University received Breakthrough Awards, Merit Awards, International Scholarships, Sports Scholarships, Enterprise and Employability Grants and Santander-funded awards. The donor of my award is Andrew Davidson (pictured with me above), a University of Brighton Alumnus who studied Visual Culture and is now an Education and Communications Consultant. I was awarded £500, which I plan to use towards a trip to the 2019 Venice Biennale, inspired by Khadija Saye’s achievement. This will be my first experience of an international biennial and further my understanding of contemporary art exhibitions. I haven’t been to Venice since I went on a three-week trip to look at as many examples of Titian’s work as I could before enrolling at university first time around, so this will be a memorable and beneficial use of the award money, representing my circuitous journey back to the History of Art.

History of Art and Design Blog

School of Humanities and Social Science University of Brighton

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