This intervention reimagines the starting point of a menswear design project brief by centering literary engagement as a means to deepen critical thinking, cultural awareness, and creative authorship.
Within the workshop “Narrative Threads: Designing from Literature,” which will take place at the end of year one before the summer break, students are asked to select a novel from a carefully curated, inclusive 30-book reading list and use it as the basis for design development.
The core pedagogic change is the invitation for students to respond to the text through the lens of their own positionality—their identity, lived experience, and worldview—rather than defaulting to surface visual inspiration.
This lesson plan above supports students in producing conceptually grounded work that reflects on themes such as migration, gender identity, belonging, colonial histories, family, or mythology. A structured, research-led approach empowers them to critically decode the text’s themes through group mapping, glossary building, and interdisciplinary referencing.
Supported by the LCF Library and course librarian, students engage with diverse research tools including academic journals, visual archives, and specialist platforms like the Fashion and Race Database . Resources are scaffolded to be inclusive and accessible: subtitles and transcripts are provided for learning videos, glossary templates (below) aid language acquisition, and multimodal materials support different learning needs.
By foregrounding narrative and personal meaning in the design process, this intervention should not only diversify the sources students engage with but also encourages a more reflective, ethical design methodology. It pushes students to understand fashion as a storytelling practice with the potential to amplify underrepresented perspectives.
This change contributes to broader institutional goals around decolonising the curriculum and fostering inclusion in creative education. Ultimately, students are empowered to construct design work that is intellectually rich, emotionally resonant, and situated within both global cultural contexts and their individual experiences.
References:
McNeil, P., 2005. Fashion and Narrative: A Semiotic Reading of Fashion in Modern Literature. In: P. McNeil, ed., Fashion: Critical and Primary Sources. Oxford: Berg.
Mida, I.E., 2018. Reading Fashion in Art. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts.
Chrisman-Campbell, K., ed., 2016. Fashion and Fiction: Dress in Art and Literature in Stuart England. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Lonetree, A., 2012. Decolonizing Museums: Representing Native America in National and Tribal Museums. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Mabaso, N. and Jennings, H., 2020. Fashioning Postcolonial Critique: An African Conceptual Framework. In: E. Gaugele and M. Titton, eds., Fashion and Postcolonial Critique. Berlin: Sternberg Press, pp. 152–169.
Gaugele, E. and Titton, M., eds., 2020. Fashion and Postcolonial Critique. Berlin: Sternberg Press.
Hessel, K., 2019–. The Great Women Artists Podcast [podcast]. Available at: https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/podcast/
Barry, B. and Beltrán-Rubio, L., 2020–. The Fashion Studies Podcast [podcast]. Available at: https://www.fashionstudiespodcast.com/
Van Ness, J., 2015–. Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness [podcast]. Available at: https://www.earwolf.com/show/getting-curious/
Pineapple Street Studios, 2020–. Back Issue [podcast]. Available at: https://www.pineapple.fm/show/back-issue
Magugu, T., 2020. Girl Seeks Girl [fashion collection]. South Africa: Thebe Magugu. Available at: https://www.thebemagugu.com/
Wales Bonner, G., 2019. A Time for New Dreams [exhibition]. London: Serpentine Galleries.
See also: Wales Bonner, G., 2019. Grace Wales Bonner: A Time for New Dreams. London: Serpentine Galleries.
Green, C., 2016. Autumn/Winter 2016 Collection [fashion show]. Inspired by Kafka’s The Trial. Available via fashion archives or publications like Dazed and ShowStudio.
Ninomiya, K., 2018. Noir Kei Ninomiya Collections. Japan: Comme des Garçons. Available via brand lookbooks, Vogue Runway, and exhibition catalogues.
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