Interview with Professor Frances Corner (2014)

Professor Frances Corner OBE, is Warden of Goldsmiths, University of London. She has been the Head of London College of Fashion, University of the Arts, London, since 2005. In 2009 she was made Professor of Art and Design Education. She chaired the Council for Higher Education in Art & Design (CHEAD) and was a committee member for GLAD (Group for Learning in Art and Design). Whilst at LCF she has implemented and supervised a number of pioneering areas, including: Art Against Knives; the Send Prison Project; the Ten Stores Challenge. Her research interests are, amongst other areas: Sustainability; fashion consumption; Health and Well-Being; and Arts & Design Education. LCF is the UK’s only college to specialise in fashion education and research. It is the world’s oldest fashion educational institution. 

You began your career studying Fine Art, and you have exhibited as a fine artist. What form does your fine art take? 

I was essentially a drawer and printmaker, although I also did some acrylic and oil paintings. They were essentially symbolic, and explored issues around identity and feminism, through the use of animals, figures and objects, usually in a landscape but sometimes in interior space.

Was it a seamless transition from this to the fashion area? Do you think that your background in fine art has in any way informed your interest in fashion?

My background has totally informed how I perceive things, analyse and make connections. It wasn’t so much seamless, as more like a series of moves and decisions. I quite like the idea that at different stages of life you can be involved and committed to different interests. John Cage, who was somebody who influenced my thinking rather than my practice, was an artist who was also a significant chess player, mushroom expert, musician and performer. So, that idea that you could do different things at different stages has long been interesting to me. Once I started to become more involved in teaching and running departments that’s when I did a PhD (Phil) at Oxford University, in their education department. I looked at the effects of the expansion and changes in higher education on the subject of fine art. It was a theory rather than practice-based doctorate, because I wanted to understand more about research. It was that doctorate that changed a lot of my thinking and meant that I was very interested in how institutions are connected to their communities, whether that pertains to industries, local communities, students or staff, and so on - and that’s why I made the decision to move to LCF.

During your time as Head of London College of Fashion you have pioneered a number of innovations. For instance: The Centre for Sustainable Fashion. What is ‘sustainable fashion’ and why is it so important? Is it possible in today’s world?

I think being somebody connected to the arts and interested in a range of issues is really what I bought to LCF. When I started, the college was celebrating its 100^th anniversary and I was concerned that if we were going to have an industry in 100 years’ time we had to address the issues around the depletion of resources, pressures on water and issues around climate change. So it’s my interest in the external, and how fashion relates to the economic, social and cultural, which led to the formation of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion and programmes such as our fashion in prisons work and our links with charities and community groups.  These key areas now come under a banner which we have coined as Better Lives – the concept that fashion can be used as a catalyst for change. 

You have spoken about the possibilities of fashion combining with science and industry. You have also stated that Art and Design have a responsibility to society because they affect it so deeply. Some of what you say on the topic reminds me a little of John Ruskin’s or William Morris’ philosophies. Can you expand on this a little?

I think that’s absolutely true. I am interested in both of these figures, and particularly the idea that the creative person has a significant role to play in society and a responsibility to the world. I like the talk given by CP Snow - that is well over 50 years old now – in which he argues that the arts and science should not be separated. They have a relationship, and a responsibility, to work together and to address the great challenges of the world. I would like to rediscover these issues and, actually, I think somebody like Jeremy Deller is revisiting the ideas that William Morris first highlighted. 

In the last few decades in Fine Art we have often seen the dissolving of various boundaries between disciplines. Are there also dissolving boundaries between fashion and any other areas?

Totally. In fact the thing about fashion is that it doesn’t really have any boundaries. I think technology is where you’re going to see the most integration with fashion. Already we are starting to see aspects of e-technology combined into textiles and fibres, and it’s exciting to think about how that’s going to effect the clothes we wear in the future. 

What would you say are some of the major changes that have taken place in the fashion industry over the last decade?

It’s the democratisation of fashion. What’s interesting is that when I came in ten years ago as Head of College, the ‘Primark effect’ was just beginning to be felt. After a decade, there are far more questions now, and whilst that side of the industry is still expanding and growing, there is definitely a rear-guard action developing against the implication of fast fashion. We certainly see that extensively with our students and alumni. They are having a big effect within the industry in helping to change people’s perceptions. There is still a long way to go but, nevertheless, there’s been a definite shift. 

Do you feel that the ethical treatment of animals is a concern in today’s fashion industry? For instance, there seems to have been a resurgence recently in the use of fur. What are your thoughts on this?

It is our role as educators to contribute to the debate surrounding fur – the arguments both for and against are complex.  Fur should not be taken in isolation – wider issues of animal husbandry and the use of leather in fashion products must also be examined, together with debates about labour and sustainability in the manufacture of clothes and fashion accessories. As global leaders in fashion education we equip our students with the knowledge and the skills to make informed and responsible decisions; both from a social and environmental perspective. 

Today there are continuous government pressures to modularise college courses, to streamline delivery, to merge disciplines and even to combine institutions. How can courses continue to give the best possible education to students, given this constant demand to tighten the belt?

It was those issues that I really explored in my doctorate, which I finished in 2004. Yes, those are factors but actually I think that it is possible. One of the biggest changes that I’ve seen is the students’ desire to be very much more in control of their learning and the courses that they undertake. So, something like modularity, if structured properly, can open up possibilities. Most courses are modular or unitised because in the end all learning has to be divided up somehow. The way to do it is to also use digital technology to support where you bring students in, where you give them space to work in groups, where you introduce them to workshops. All of those things are very complex and the discussions we have broach how do you structure courses to give students as much choice as possible and to also make sure they have enough depth as is possible in their learning. The other factor that is also very important is how you prepare students for employability and for the industry without reducing the need for creativity and self-expression.

In the Fine Art area the ‘mistake’ is a vital part of the creative process because it can open up previously unthought-of directions within a piece of work. How important is the ‘mistake’ in fashion design? Given the current educational pressures, is there still room for students to experiment and to take chances, knowing that they may well be taking the ‘wrong’, but more fruitful, lateral path?

It’s totally important. It is central to risk-taking and exploration; any thought, any challenge of our approach to the world has to involve an element of risk-taking. A new thought, new direction doesn’t just happen, it comes because somebody is pushing the boundaries and asking a big ‘What if?’ question. What if I do this? What if I say that? What if I put these elements together? And where we are looking at some of the new possible collaborations between fashion and technology, or fashion and science, that has to bring about an element of risk taking in terms of how you think and how you pull those elements together. 

At this point in our history the media and our consumer society are pushing us all towards a particular, very narrow sort of beauty/body-type which marginalises anyone not fitting within that. How can this be countered? 

I can start by saying that is a very broad and complicated question. I think as consumers we have to put pressure on manufacturers to make sure that the representation includes different shapes and sizes, different ages and ethnicities. There was a lot of interest on this topic at a meeting recently at the British Fashion Council advisory board and they’ve done a lot of work to raise the issues around the stereotyping and the use of so called skinny models. But for me it is something that is much broader, it’s to do with the media and so much to do with celebrity culture, tabloid press, and the symbiotic relationship between naming and shaming. People go on diets then publicise that, and there’s very much a vicious cycle, which only we as consumers in society can challenge. 

What is LCF looking for in a student? Can you speak of some of your successful alumni – what are they up to at the moment?

The typical LCF student doesn’t exist - we have students from a diverse range of backgrounds from over 100 countries and a portfolio of over 75 courses, which range in level from undergraduate to postgraduate and executive EMBA. Not only do our courses inspire innovative design and manufacturing skills, they give our students the practical business knowledge needed to survive in today’s fast-paced fashion environments, as well as being able to tell the story of fashion in the experiential and the media. What is most important is to be able to show a strong interest and passion for your chosen subject. 

We have a number of very exciting new designers breaking through, including Ryan Lo, Hannah Weiland of SHRIMPS, Lucas Nascimento, and we have established names such as JW Anderson. 

MA Fashion Entrepreneurship & Innovation student Neliana Fuenmayor recently won 10,000 Euro in the inaugural Kering Award for Sustainable Fashion. Corinne Delaney studied MA Fashion Media Production and is now a freelance Fashion Film Director. Archivist and MA Curation graduate Tory Turk has worked with SHOWstudio and The Jam exhibition.

You are well-known for your love of the work of Yohji Yamamoto, who speaks of wanting to create clothing that ‘stands outside of time’. What is it that you admire about his work?

It’s precisely that. He is essentially an artist who expresses himself through fashion.