Suzanne Rowland

Dr Suzanne Rowland is a lecturer in fashion and dress history in the School of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Brighton. She is a material culture scholar and interdisciplinary theorist with broad research interests in fashion design, manufacturing, and cross-class consumption from the early nineteenth century to the present day. With a background as a costume maker in film and theatre, she is particularly interested in how dress is manufactured and its corporeal relationship to the body. Her AHRC/Design Star PhD research investigated the design and wholesale manufacturing of women’s fashionable blouses during the 1910s through material culture, Actor-Network Theory, and storytelling. In 2021, with Prof Lou Taylor, she organised the two-day international online conference: ‘Women’s Tailored Clothes across Britain, Ireland, Europe and America, 1750-1920.’

Suzanne is a member of the following research networks:

Centre for Deign History, University of Brighton Centre for Design History

‘Tailored Clothes for Women’ project as part of the European Research group Apparences, Corps et Sociétés http://gis-acorso.com/  

19^th Century Dress and Textiles Reframed https://c19thdressandtextilesreframed.wordpress.com