Fashion Management, Marketing and Communication (FMMC)
Current research activity in this subject area takes several forms and reflects the diversity of the fashion industry itself. Specialist areas of interest within the FMMC team run the gamut of commerce and creativity and our research projects reflect the strength of links with industry and business. Our aim is to lead and foster innovative, contemporary fashion practice to develop understandings of fashion through original contributions to scholarship and theory. Projects include:
New Balance
This project is based on primary research into the future of manufacturing within the UK and focuses on the case of New Balance running shoes. The project has two interrelated strands. The first is to understand if 'Made in Britain' has resonance with consumers of high performance sportswear across Europe. What does 'Made in Britain' stand for? How is it valued both economically and culturally? The second examines the makers and manufacturers of New Balance in the UK. Who are the people behind the label? What is their contribution to regional development? How might their time-honoured manufacturing skills be preserved? The research answers these questions and offers up insights into marketing practice and theory for a global industry.
Fields of Fashion
The starting point for Fields of Fashion is the feeling that fashion consumption, retailing and production in rural areas has been neglected in academic studies. A rash of work exists on fashion in so-called 'world cities' but the richly textured, vibrant landscapes of fashion away from the metropolis have yet to be considered through any sustained academic research. Primary work is currently focused on an exploration of consumption and retailing at rural field events (such as horse trials and county shows), examining the phenomenon of temporary 'shopping villages' at these sites. The project is based on the proposition of the 'field as mall' and aims to explore how the temporary fashion trade stand at these events forms an intriguing – and perhaps undervalued – route to market. More broadly, this research explores temporality and mobility in retailing and in so doing offers challenges both to the conventions of the traditional high street to conceptual notions of what constitutes 'the rural'.
SERVIVE
Dr Knox is leading the NTU research team involved in the EU-funded SERVIVE project on mass customisation. Servive is a €3 million research and development project to explore how customised garments might be co-designed, visualised using web-based state-of-the-art virtual reality, then produced in EU-located high-tech micro factories.
Academic staff
Dr Alison Goodrum, Dr Morgaine Gaye, Rosemary Goulding, Claire Harris, Helen Henderson, Michelle Hughes, Dr Alistair Knox.
Doctoral students
Alice Dallabona and Vaeovan Saicheua
For more information concerning the group, please email Dr Alison Goodrum, Reader in Fashion Marketing Management and Communication or telephone +44 (0)115 848 8446. Individual enquiries concerning undertaking research or as a possible collaborator please contact the named staff member(s).
