Alberto Atalla Filho is an Associate Lecturer in Cultural and Historical Studies at London College of Fashion (LCF), UAL. With over 35 years of experience, Alberto has a wealth of knowledge in the fashion industry in creative and technical roles and has lectured and taught in Brazil and the UK. He holds a BA in Fashion Business with specialisation in Fashion Design from the Anhembi Morumbi University in São Paulo-Brazil, and a MA in Pattern and Garment Technology from LCF, where he is now completing a practice-based PhD in Cultural and Historical Studies.
Alberto has collaborated with The Underpinnings Museum co-curating the exhibition ‘Remaking the Past’ and taught numerous fashion certificate courses. His research interests focus on gender, fashion history, material culture, embodied research as a process of knowing, and remaking as methodology. In this interview, Alberto shares insights from his career, ongoing research, and passion for teaching and fashion.
My interest in fashion started at an early age. Watching my mother make dresses, I was always fascinated by her ability to transform a piece of fabric into a garment. In my late teenage years, I began buying and selling fashion accessories, but I quickly realised that I preferred making the products myself. That was when I decided to learn sewing and pattern cutting - my mother, who was an extremely talented dressmaker, helped me develop the basic skills. Within a year, I had opened a boutique selling my own range of clothing and accessories. To develop my understanding of the process, I studied for a BA in Fashion Business, where I focused on the areas that excited me most: pattern cutting and design.
After graduating, I worked as a pattern cutter, designer, and product developer for several major companies in Brazil. Over the years, I have held a variety of creative, technical, and educational roles. I started out working closely with production teams, which gave me a clear understanding of how garments are constructed - from concept through to completion. I have had the opportunity to work with a wide range of designers and brands across different products. What has always fascinated me is the relationship between technique and expression - how the cut of a garment can communicate identity or reflect a social context. That curiosity has stayed with me and has developed into the centre of my current academic and research interests. Every phase of my industry experience has shaped how I now explore fashion - as practice and cultural knowledge.
In Brazil, parallel to my work in the fashion industry, I was also employed as a Lecturer in visual communication and garment technology. In 2003, I relocated to London, where I completed a Short Course in Fashion Design and Marketing at Central Saint Martins and worked as a pattern cutter and technical designer. During this time, I continued to research fashion and its historical influences.
As a result of this work, my early experience in Brazil, and my time as a community volunteer in London teaching sewing skills, I developed a strong passion for education. This led me to undertake an MA in Pattern and Garment Technology at LCF. To continue developing my research skills, I am now completing a PhD in Cultural and Historical Studies, also at LCF.
LCF has become a kind of intellectual and creative home for me. It is a place where academic research and practical knowledge coexist - and that reflects my journey. After completing my MA, I knew I wanted to continue the research I had started during the course, so I pursued exploring the cultural and historical aspects of fashion. As a practitioner, I particularly wanted to use my technical skills to continue developing my research in fashion and history.
As a student, postgraduate researcher, and Associate Lecturer in Cultural and Historical Studies, I have been surrounded by an inspiring community of researchers, makers, and thinkers who are as passionate about the connection between theory and practice as I am. What I love most about the College is the way it welcomes diverse approaches - whether through critical writing, object-based research, or embodied methodologies. It is a space where you can ask questions about fashion’s role in society while still keeping your skills - and your hands - in the practice of fashion.
I also admire the people and the facilities that make up the everyday life of the College - from the library’s amazing resources to the technical spaces and the many casual conversations that inspire new ideas. That is something I really value.
The work I am exhibiting at Fashioning Frequencies is based on my PhD research, which explores how remaking historical garments can be a way of engaging with knowledge. More specifically, I investigate how bespoke tailoring techniques - cutting, shaping, and making British men’s frock coats - influenced the cut and construction of women’s riding habits between 1820 and 1860. This can help us understand how women negotiated the tension between restriction and freedom during this period in the 19th century. The garments displayed at the exhibition are reconstructions based on archival research and not intended as exact replicas, but as interpretations - objects that capture the original garment’s cultural and material narratives while leaving space for reflection, skilled making, and embodied engagement.
I am interested in how clothing transmits female identity in the early 19th century. Through an exploration of the adaptation of male bespoke tailoring for women’s clothing, this work aims to investigate whether this contributed to a change in cultural and social attitudes during the period under study. In this way, the act of remaking becomes a form of dialogue with the past, giving agency to the maker and the wearer. I use fashion as a way to explore historical memory and lived experience.
My PhD is based on a triangulated methodological framework - working with garments as material evidence, remaking as a research process, and exploring the relation between body and clothing within the historical context of these garments. This methodology informs the work in the exhibition. The garment is the result of object study, critical engagement with historical context, and a process of remaking.
It's important that this isn’t just about reproducing a historical object. Rather, it is about using the making process to explore and test theoretical ideas. This kind of research helps us understand the physical experiences and social conditions of the women who wore the garment, particularly how they moved, performed tasks, or in this case, rode horses while wearing them. It brings attention to the limitations and possibilities formed by the clothing.
I am currently in the final stages of my PhD, so my focus is very much on completing that body of work. At the same time, I am starting to think about how I might expand this methodology in future projects. I have just published an article in the Jubilee edition of Costume Journal, entitled Engaging the Past to Fashion the Future: The Use of Early Nineteenth-Century Bespoke Tailored Men’s Coats and Gender Narratives to Shape Contemporary Womenswear, which is based on my Masters research. Looking ahead, I am keen to continue exploring the relationship between gender, clothing, and the body.
There are areas within my research that I believe are worth developing further, particularly the use of tailoring in women's dress across different contexts, and the ways certain materials, now associated with men’s fashion, were historically used in women’s clothing. I am especially interested in how these material and technical choices can challenge contemporary ideas about gendered dress and open up new conversations in academic and design communities.
PS: Many thanks to Angela Wells, a professional side saddle rider, for contributing to the research interview.
Fashioning Frequencies is open until 21 June 2025 at LCF’s East Bank campus.