Research Area: Fashion & Textiles

View Dr Charlotte Goldthorpe's Profile

My research explores memory, well-being, and identity through the stories we tell — and the ones we risk losing. I am interested in how creative and material practices can preserve lived experience, especially within communities that have historically been marginalised or underrepresented. Through projects such as Lives in Latex, Mondays at the Museum, and the development of my brand Wrapped in Rubber, I examine how storytelling, design, and reflection can support well-being, belonging, and cultural visibility.

Lives in Latex investigates identity, self-expression, and wellness by recording the experiences of older members of the latex fetish community. The project seeks to preserve their voices before they are lost to time, recognising the importance of ageing perspectives within a subculture often associated with youth. Working in partnership with the Bishopsgate Institute’s Special Collections – UK Leather and Fetish Archive, the research combines oral history, artefact, and ephemera analysis to explore how wearing latex can nurture confidence, joy, and self-acceptance. By archiving these stories, Lives in Latex challenges preconceptions around fetish, ageing, and desire, reframing them as spaces of creativity, resilience, and care.

Emerging directly from this research, my brand Wrapped in Rubber explores how design can respond to the needs of ageing fetishists. Through conversations and interviews with participants, I learned how many long-term wearers wanted garments that remained sensorially satisfying yet were easier to put on and take off, and more inconspicuous in public life. Wrapped in Rubber responds to these insights by developing designs that combine accessibility with aesthetic pleasure — reimagining fetish wear as both functional and expressive. The brand stands as a form of creative research translation, bridging academic inquiry and lived experience through empathetic, inclusive design.

Mondays at the Museum is a creative health initiative based at the Tolson Museum in Huddersfield, developed through collaboration between Kirklees Museums and staff researchers in the School of Arts and Humanities. The project provides accessible wellbeing activities — from drumming and yoga to craft and conversation — within a welcoming heritage setting. It explores how museums can function as spaces of care, supporting mental and physical health through creativity, reflection, and community connection. Working with Social Prescribers, Primary Care Networks, and local organisations, the project contributes to West Yorkshire’s emerging Creative Health Hub, demonstrating how heritage spaces can play an active role in addressing health inequalities and fostering well-being across the district.

Ultimately, my research demonstrates that creative practice can be a powerful form of social and emotional well-being. By amplifying marginalised voices and transforming them into tangible forms — be it an archive, a conversation, or a wearable design — I aim to show how memory and material can work together to sustain both individual and collective resilience.

 

View Dr Claire Barber's Profile

My research explores the interrelationship between textile processes, sound, and embodied experience. Through practice-based enquiry, I examine how material actions, such as stitching, melting, or pinning, can generate new forms of listening and knowing. My work moves between the tactile and the sonic, considering how rhythm, repetition, and texture translate across sensory fields.

Collaboration has become central to my research. Working with sound artists such as Gavin Osborn and Monty Adkins, I have explored how sonic and textile structures can mirror one another: how sound might be “woven” and how cloth might “resonate.” These collaborations extend the textile field beyond the visual, transforming process-based gestures, like dyeing, cutting, or sewing, into immersive, temporal experiences.

Running is another key method in my research. Moving through the Yorkshire landscape, I gather sensory and material encounters - heather, stone, grasses - that reappear in my installations. This physical rhythm becomes a form of thinking: each step echoes the repetitive gestures of making. The landscape is not a backdrop, but an active collaborator that shapes my awareness of ecological fragility and connection.

My practice also draws from history and memory. Projects involving the stitched clothing of my late husband explore how textiles hold time, grief, and resilience. Working with historians of humanitarian handicrafts and exhibiting internationally, I situate my work in wider conversations around craft, care, empathy and repair.

For me, research is a continuum between making and reflection. It is iterative, responsive, and speculative and a weaving together of materials, ideas, and relationships. Through this process, I aim to expand how textile thinking might engage with sound, environment, and the poetic resonances of touch.

View Dr Claire Evans' Profile

Claire Evans is a fashion design and production specialist with extensive industry experience. Her primary research focuses on sustainable waste efficiency in fashion production and evaluating material properties for environmentally responsible use. She has collaborated with businesses across the fashion sector and is currently dedicated to developing innovative, waste-reducing strategies for SMEs and micro-producers through collaborative approaches.

In her creative practice, Claire explores the beauty of imperfection in fashion by challenging conventional design and pattern-cutting techniques. Her work reimagines traditional methods, prioritises fabric efficiency, and transforms irregularities into intentional design features, turning flaws into assets to minimise fashion waste.