A black and white photographic portrait of designer Althea McNish. Taken from the Design Council Archive housed at the University of Brighton Design Archives.

Althea McNish. Catalogue number: DCA-30-1-POR-M-MC-1. Design Council Archive, University of Brighton Design Archives.

AHRC Collaborative Doctoral student, Leah Armstrong, is curating a display of portraits of women designers for a new exhibition at the Fashion & Textiles Museum, London. Opening on 16 March, the display includes original photographic portraits from the University of Brighton Design Archives and explores the image and status of women designers since the 1950s. It accompanies the exhibition ‘Designing Women: Post-war British Textiles’, featuring the work of Lucienne Day, Jaqueline Groag, Marian Mahler and Paule Vézelay from the collection of Jill A Wiltse and H Kirk Brown III.

Leah has compiled a digital resource to accompany the display, hosted on the Design Archives web pages and launched to coincide with International Women’s Day.

Leah is also taking part in a study day organized by the Design Archives and Newham College of Further Education along with other postgraduate researchers and academic staff from across the Faculty. Taking place at the Museum on Wednesday 16 May, the aim of the study day is to consider the designs displayed in the exhibition in the context of their production and consumption focusing particularly on the professional identity of women designers in the middle of the twentieth century. A limited number of funded places are available to students, please send an expression of interest to designarchives@brighton.ac.uk if you wish to attend.

https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/womendesignersportraits/