Fashion media: yesterday today tomorrow

The Fashion Media: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow conference brought together the leading minds and voices in fashion research and practice to explore and debate the key issues facing fashion imagery and communications today and consider them in relation to historical and future media cultures. Programmed by Dr. Djurdja Bartlett and Professor Penny Martin of London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, and staged at the college's Oxford Circus campus over two days, the conference was structured around a series of provocative, 20-minute 'position' papers. These focused on themes such as questions of national identity in historic magazine culture; masculinity and criminality in male dress; ethnicity and propriety in fashion representation; quality control in digital innovations and the future of online fashion. Recognizing the burgeoning research interest in fashion media among undergraduate and postgraduate students, there was also a Pecha Kucha session for postgraduate students and early career researchers to present their projects.

The conference boasted an excellent group of international and domestic speakers including: Valerie Steele of Museum at the FIT, New York; Charlotte Cotton of the National Media Museum, London; Alison Clarke of University of Applied Arts, Vienna; Barbara Vinken of the University of Munich; Friedrich Weltzien of the Weissensee Academy of Fine Arts, Berlin; Simona Segre of IULM, Milan and IUAV, Venice; Alistair O'Neill of Central Saint Martins, London and Val Williams of London College of Communications.

From the LCF host college were: Reina Lewis, Agnès Rocamora, Nilgin Yusuf, Sarah Cheang, Shaun Cole and Magda Keaney.

The two days culminated in an industry panel representing leading figures from print, online and film-related fashion cultures including: Katrina Dodd, Editor of Contagious FEED; Matthew Moneypenny, CEO of Trunk Archive, New York, and Lee Swillingham, Creative Director of LOVE magazine.