Dr Michelle Jones

Biography

Dr Michelle Jones (SFHEA) is a design historian and educator, and lectures in Cultural Studies at Central St. Martins for the Fashion, Fashion Communication, Textiles and Jewellery BA courses and MA Fashion Histories and Theories. She is also a SEDA Recognised PhD Supervisor. Michelle undertook her AHRC funded PhD at the Royal College of Art, where she had also completed her MA in Design History and Material Culture.

Her research interests focus on the process of professionalisation within design practice and the maintenance of creative livelihoods within their social, political and industrial contexts. This can be seen in her monograph London Couture and the Making of a Fashion Centre, published by MIT Press, Massachusetts, in 2022. This examines the cultural politics of fashion design practice in the mid-twentieth century throughout a difficult socio-economic period of depression, war and post war reconstruction. The review of the book by Veronique Pouillard, Professor of International History, University of Oslo noted that: ‘Michelle Jones has written a milestone book […] the author has examined a rich corpus of archives on both sides of the Atlantic [… she] breaks new ground in business history [… Her] book offers a master class in balanced analysis. The social functions of fashion in times of abundance – but also, and especially, during periods of austerity – are analysed in a model manner in this important contribution to the history of the fashion industry.’(Pouillard, Journal of Business History, 2023)

Her current research is framed by a similar methodology but considers the influence of the high street in post war British fashion design. Under the heading of Bricks and Mortar Fashion in the Nation of Shopkeepers she is currently exploring the development and centrality of TopShop, focusing on the impact of neo-liberalism as a political and social ideology on the understanding and practice of British fashion.