Organisers
UK
SARAH GILLigan
Dr. Sarah Gilligan is an assistant professor (senior lecturer) in fashion communication in the School of Design, Arts, and Creative Industries at Northumbria University (UK). She is the cofounder and chair of the Fashion, Costume and Visual Cultures (FCVC) Network for which she was awarded a British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award. She has previously co-organised a range of FCVC Network events in Croatia, France and the UK, together with online events, mentoring early career researchers, and guest editing special issues of Clothing Cultures (6.1), Queer Studies in Media and Popular Culture (5.2-3), and Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion (7.1-2).
Sarah’s sole and co-authored research centres on the distinct, yet symbiotic relationships between costuming identities, fashion, and star-celebrity culture in contemporary visual culture. Her current projects focus on ageing on and beyond the screen adopting an interdisciplinary approach drawing from film, fashion and cultural studies. Sarah’s recent and forthcoming articles include:
- 'Dressing Keanu: Sprezzatura and fashioning ageing masculinity on the red carpet', Critical Studies in Men's Fashion (Open access).
- 'Fashioning masculinities: critical reflections on curation and future directions in masculinity studies', Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty.
- ‘From Scotland to South Korea: Tilda Swinton, place and otherness in fashion communication’. Journal of Asia-Pacific Popular Culture (in press).
- 'Fashion forward killer: Villanelle, costuming and queer style in Killing Eve' Film, Fashion and Consumption (Open access).
- 'Growing old (dis)gracefully: Spanish masculinities and star-celebrity culture', Journal of Bodies, Sexualities and Masculinities.
- ‘Dressing, undressing, and redressing: Costuming identities in Fernando León de Aranoa's El buen patrón (2021)’, Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies (in press).
Additionally, Textual Transformations is an ongoing strand of Sarah’s experimental practice-led research exploring tactile transmediality. Modified and handmade books are used to bridge the material distance between representations, clothing, and the emotions of lived experiences. Together with her visual essay ‘Down to Earth: Textual transformations, mark making and grief’, published in Lighthouse (27), Sarah’s creative work-in-progress was recently exhibited in an installation at Gallery North, as part of the What are Words Worth group show (April 2024), and will form part of the Design Feminisms Research Group Open Studio at The Late Shows (May 2025).
Sarah is Reviews Editor for Film, Fashion and Consumption journal and is on the editorial boards of Fashion, Style and Popular Culture, International Journal of Sustainable Fashion and Textiles, and Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty.
For further details of Sarah’s research see: https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/about-us/our-staff/g/sarah-gilligan/
CROATIA
PETRA KRPAN
Dr. Petra Krpan is an assistant professor in fashion theory and cultural studies at the University of Zagreb Faculty of Textile Technology, Department for Fashion and Textile Design (CRO). She is the cofounder and vice-president of the Fashion, Costume and Visual Cultures (FCVC) Network. Since 2012, she has been working at the University of Zagreb, as an assistant and later senior assistant, appointed in 2021, conducting lectures and seminars in Sociology of Fashion, Fashion Theory I & II, New Media and Fashion, Fashion Performance, and related subjects.
Petra’s solo and collaborative research investigates the distinct yet interconnected relationships between photography, cyanotypes, textiles, and memory within contemporary visual culture. Her current projects examine the ways in which material practices and visual archives construct and mediate individual and collective memory, adopting an interdisciplinary methodology that draws from photographic theory, textile studies, and cultural history. Recent and forthcoming publications include:
- ‘Food as a Visual Practice: Fashion Design and Communication in Vegan Food Trends in Food and Sustainability: Communication, PR, and the Culture of Responsibility,’ edited by Topić-Rutherford, Martina, & Geiger Zeman, Marija, Leeds, Emerald Publishing (Forthcoming)
- ‘Beauty and Body in Fashion Photography: The Covered Body and New Bodily Practices’ in: Beauty Industry: Gender, Media and Everyday Life, edited by Michal Chmiel, Marija Geiger Zeman, and Mirela Holy, Leeds, Emerald Publishing, 2024 (LINK)
- ‘Contemporary Croatian Fashion Photography from the 1990s to the 2020s’, Zagreb, ULUPUH, 2022. (LINK)
- Digital Fashion and Artificial Intelligence in: TZG 2024: International Scientific-Professional Symposium "Textile Science & Economy". Book of Proceedings: DIGITAL FASHION, edited by Katarina Nina Simončič and Petra Krpan, Zagreb, University of Zagreb Faculty of Textile Technology (LINK)
- Digital Archives of Contemporary Fashion Photography, in: TZG 2024: International Scientific-Professional Symposium "Textile Science & Economy". Book of Proceedings: DIGITAL FASHION, edited by Katarina Nina Simončič and Petra Krpan, Zagreb, University of Zagreb Faculty of Textile Technology, 2024 (LINK)
- Fashioning the Cinematic Screen: Body Transmediality, Appearance and the 'Event'," in: Fashion Theory and the Visual Semiotics of the Body, edited by Žarko Paić, Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2022. (LINK)
Dr. Krpan has published numerous papers and authored the book Contemporary Croatian Fashion Photography from the 1990s to the 2020s (ULUPUH and Adris Foundation, 2022). Her work has been recognized with multiple awards, including the Rector’s Award (2008) and two Awards for Best Young Artist (2015) and Best Publication (2022) by the Croatian Association of Artists of Applied Arts.