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Working in London's East End: Green Spaces
As promised, in my post about the V&A Sackler Lecture, I’d like to profile some of the work the college is doing in London’s East End; projects, initiatives and partnerships we hope to build on. This week is Green Week at the college and UAL so I thought I’d start with the fantastic work the… →
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Opinion: A Question of Age
Many of the world’s leading fashion designers for example Donna Karan, Karl Lagerfeld, or Vivienne Westwood, to name but a few, are in their 60s, 70s, even 80s, yet create clothes that the fashion industry almost exclusively targets at women in their 20s and 30s. It almost seems as though this contradiction, which is at… →
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Opinion: Fashion Education in Prisons
The College’s project with women offenders at Send Prison has given many of us an insight into the contradictions in our attitudes to crime and punishment, forcing us to reassess prejudices and pre-conceptions. Elizabeth Fry, English Quaker and prison reformer, (1780-1845), about to visit prisoners in Newgate, to read them the Bible. My interest in… →
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Mirror Mirror
Food is more carefully photographed than old people. Food is celebrated while old age is marginalized. Margaret Morganroth Gullette pointed this out at our conference last week, Mirror Mirror, discussing representations and reflections on age and ageing held here at the College last week. For her, representation of ageing is the new frontier, where are… →
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OPINION: Sooner or Later
In thinking about ideas or innovations that are ahead of their time, or those which have had a major impact on our lives, it is tempting to focus on those that have had a momentous impact on our day to day living. The wheel, the printing press, the internet, even the iPhone, have all altered… →
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Opinion: The Creative Arts and Rehabilitation
Over the summer we published the first edition of The Beauty’s Inside, a unique and collaborative publication between LCF and HMP Send. The magazine brought together eleven serving women offenders and eleven students from across our School of Media and Communication who, over the course of ten weekly workshops held at the women’s prison last… →
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Beauty of Age: The Debate
In preparing for the Beauty of Age debate tonight, a number of themes have emerged that have really set me wondering as to where our contemporary emphasis on equating youth with beauty will lead. For example, growing interest in the ancient fairy tale, Snow White. Currently a number of films, ballets and television programmes are… →