Louise Chapman

Biography

Louise is currently enrolled on an AHRC funded practice-based Ph.D. at London College of Fashion with Amy de la Haye as her director of studies at London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London. Her Ph.D. is entitled, Costuming as an Authorial Practice: Reading and Re-Authoring an Assemblage of Every Day Women’s Aesthetic Dress from 1795-1885 and is concerned with an assemblage of historical everyday dress uncovered in a store cupboard in the School of Fashion and Textiles at Birmingham City University in 2012.

Following the discovery, research revealed provenance of some of the dress to Kate Elizabeth Bunce, the late Pre-Raphaelite artist who worked, studied and lived in Birmingham. Louise’s research employs object-based study, material culture analysis, fictional writing and performative costuming to renegotiate the contract for participation within encounters of everyday dress, where the practice re-animates the dress for the spectator.

Prior to working in higher education Louise worked as a costume practitioner for many of the UK's best known theatre's including, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Stephen Joseph Theatre, with Alan Ayckbourn, Bristol Old Vic, Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Plymouth Theatre Royal. Louise has also worked freelance with Frantic Assembly, Aardman Animations and Northern Broadsides.