Fashion as a Tool for Social Change

Professor Catherine Harper is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Student Journey) at The British University in Egypt, and Editor-in-Chief of TEXTILE: Cloth & Culture, a Taylor & Francis international journal. She previously held senior leadership roles, including two Deanships and two Deputy Vice-Chancellorships, in the UK.

With a PhD in Composite Textiles and postgraduate degrees in Textiles from Ulster University and Goldsmiths, University of London, she was awarded the title of Professor of Textiles in the UK in 2011, and is Chair Professor of Design at Woxsen University, India. Her latest book, The Stained and Bloodied Cloths of Ireland, was published by Bloomsbury in 2025 and was supported by a Marc Fitch Award and the Janet Arnold Award from the UK Society of Antiquaries.

Catherine is motivated by education for social transformation, cross-cultural understanding, justice, and tolerance, as well as the pursuit and application of knowledge that makes a real and lasting difference to the world. She sits on the Board of the UK’s Institute for Equity, University College, is a member of Gulf HE, and gained her Advance HE Principal Fellowship (PFHEA) in 2025.

Professor Lucy Orta is an internationally recognised visual arts practitioner exploring making, history and theory through the material lens of textiles.

Her practice investigates the interrelations between the individual body and community structures, exploring their diverse identities and means of cohabitation. Practice methods include drawing, textile crafts, pattern-cutting, photography, film and performance to realise singular bodies of work including, Refuge Wear / Body Architecture, portable and autonomous habitats that reflect on issues of mobility and human survival; Nexus Architecture, clothing and accessories that shape modular and collective bodies through the metaphor of the social link; and Lifeguard wearables that investigate the dual condition of the body's vulnerability and resilience.

Collaborating with marginalised and vulnerable communities Lucy employs participatory methods, storytelling, co-creation and reciprocal learning to empower participants through textile-led practice. Notable projects include EU-Roma, mapping hard-to-reach Roma tribes in Europe (EU Culture Programme 2007-2013); Banner Processions with female prisoners (Historic England 2017-2018); Traces: Stories of Migration with East London migrant communities (Arts Council of England 2022-2024); Lifeline with UK refugee and asylum seekers (AHRC 2022-2024).

Appointed as Professor at University of the Arts London (UAL) London College of Fashion in 2002, she is a member of Centre for Sustainable Fashion, an Associate of TrAIN (Research Centre for Transnational Art Identity and Nation) and a Research Affiliate at MIT's Art Culture Technology Lab. As Chair of Art and the Environment, Lucy Orta founded the UAL Art for the Environment Residency Programme. In acknowledgement of her academic contribution to the visual arts, Lucy has received an honorary Master of Arts from Nottingham Trent University and an honorary Doctor of Letters from University of Brighton.

Gavin Douglas is an experienced fashion academic who is dedicated to advancing Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) within both UK Art and Design Higher Education and the global fashion industry, with a particular focus on race equity. His educational practice and professional work foreground the lived experiences of marginalised and minoritised communities, ensuring their perspectives inform curriculum and industry engagement.

Currently, Douglas is a Senior Academic at Manchester Metropolitan University’s Manchester Fashion Institute, where he also acts as EDI Lead. He has the experience of holding significant leadership roles beyond the institution, including Co-Chair and Council Member of Fashion and the Arts Creating Equity (FACE) and Trustee of the Graduate Fashion Foundation. As part of the School’s Senior Leadership Team, People Strategy Group, and the School Management Group, Douglas aligns high-level EDI strategies with staff development and operational planning, creating equity-driven institutional change while shaping the next generation of fashion talent.

Dr. Kaustav SenGupta is a distinguished futurist, color behaviourist, academician, and Gen AI expert, currently serving as an Associate Professor and Link Chairperson at National Institute of Fashion Technology. With over 25 years of experience, Dr. SenGupta has provided strategic foresights and trend consultancies to globally renowned brands such as Nike, Nokia, Vodafone, Coca Cola, Hyundai, Kia Motors, NTT Data, Sony, Samsung, Apple, Wild Republic USA, Plan UK, Knights & Walker Dubai, Ruby Pseudo UK, Skullcandy etc. He is a member of the boards of studies for five universities and one leading college, contributing his expertise to shape the future design academia of this nation. As a jury panellist for the prestigious India Design Mark initiative by the Government of India, Dr. SenGupta has been instrumental in recognizing excellence in design. He has been in the Jury panel of Images Retail Award. A sought-after speaker, he has shared his insights at multiple TEDx conferences, ThinkEdu Conclave, Titan Youth Insights Panels, Lenovo Youth Insights Panel UK and Edelman roundtables, among others. His thought-leadership has also been featured in interviews with the BBC UK, The Hindu, Hindustan Times and other prominent media outlets, focusing on foresight and trend analysis. Dr. SenGupta, credited with multiple foresight tools and methodologies has published more than 30 articles, multiple research papers and chapters in the books. In addition to his academic and consulting roles, Dr. SenGupta serves as the Director of VisioNxt Trend Research and AI Lab at NIFT, driving innovative perspectives in the field of fashion forecasting and AI. VisioNxt Trend Research lab is pioneering the cutting edge tech enabled foresight research with indigenous AI deeplearning model, fashion taxonomy and being mentioned by Honorable PM of India in his speech at Bharat Tex 2025.

Dr. Anupama Pasricha, Ph.D. President's Senior Fellow for Leadership Integration, St. Catherine University, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA

Dr. Anupama Pasricha is a scholar, designer, and leader whose work sits at the intersection of leadership, fashion, sustainability, and social justice. Currently serving as the inaugural President's Senior Fellow for Leadership Integration at St. Catherine University, she brings over three decades of teaching, research, and administrative experience across the United States and India.

As former Chair of the Department of Fashion Design and Merchandising and Dean of the School of Business, Dr. Pasricha embedded sustainability and circular economy principles throughout the fashion curriculum and secured a $1.5 million grant for the Katie Leadership Impact initiative. For eight years, she served as Executive Director of Educators for Socially Responsible Apparel Practices (ESRAP), growing student engagement to over 550 participants from more than 15 universities worldwide.

Her research and consulting work spans sustainable and circular design, textile waste and upcycling, fair trade, and fashion as a vehicle for cultural and social change. She has collaborated with industry partners on circular product development and has explored innovative approaches, including 3D printing and zero-waste design strategies. She is a co-author of the annual Minnesota Census of Women in Corporate Leadership and has served as Guest Editor of Fashion Practice. Her creative work has been exhibited at the Minnesota History Center, the Textile Center of Minnesota, and the Cathy G. Murphy Gallery.

Dr. Pasricha is a recipient of the Outstanding Professional Award from the Minnesota Association of Family and Consumer Sciences and the Bonnie Jean Kelly and Joan Kelly Award for Faculty Excellence. She holds a Ph.D. and M.Ed. from Iowa State University, and her bachelor's and master's degrees are from the University of Delhi, India.

Tanveer Ahmed (she/her) teaches fashion design practice and theories and is senior lecturer in Fashion and Race at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London.

Tanveer’s research recognises the urgent need to explore alternative justice- oriented forms of fashion design by centring plural fashion narratives inspired by applying anti-colonial feminist concepts to fashion. Working to establish the academic field of decolonial fashion has led to Tanveer writing key decolonising fashion modules in the UK at The Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins and internationally, for The American University of Paris.

Tanveer guest lectures on decolonial fashion design across the UK and internationally at Gerrit Rietveld and Design Academy Netherlands and FHNW, Basel and HSLU Lucerne, Switzerland.

Tanveer’s publications have contributed to the growing body of literatures that aim to decolonise the Eurocentric canon of fashion and recent publications have been included in journals including International Journal of Fashion Studies and the books Thinking Through Fashion (2025), Fashion Education: The Systemic Revolution (2023) and Design Struggles: Intersecting Histories, Pedagogies and Perspectives (2021)

Tanveer sits on the editorial board for the journals Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education, the steering group Pedagogies for Social Justice, University of Westminster and is the University College Union Membership Secretary for Central Saint Martins.​ Tanveer is currently writing a book 'Fashion and Anti-Racism: Decolonizing Fashion Futures' (Bloomsbury forthcoming).

Dr. Neelam Raina is the Director of Research of Middlesex University and an Associate Professor of design and international development at Middlesex University, London. Her research interests include conflict, security, peace building, material cultures, gender, and livelihood generation in fragile, conflict affected states. Raina is a post conflict reconstruction expert with a focus on South Asia where she has conducted extensive empirical research over the last two and half decades in ecologically and politically fragile settings.

The Women, Peace and Security agenda is key to her research, as she seeks to foreground marginalised voices of women in fragile locations. She recently completed five year research project UKRI GCRF Gender, Justice and Security Hub as the director of the Culture and Conflict project that intertwines practice, research and policy into positive commercialised outputs with South Asian women. Raina works at the intersection of creative industry, income generation for women and peacebuilding as an economic anthropologist specialising in post conflict reconstruction.

Raina is a strong advocate for Afghan women and is the Director of the Secretariat to the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on Afghan women and girls in UK parliament. Her research in Afghanistan is ongoing as she brings women’s tacit knowledge to commercially viable spaces from the confines of the home.

Raina has a PhD in Design and Development and a master’s in design and manufacture from De Montfort University, Leicester. From 2018-2021 she was the Challenge Leader for UKRI’s conflict and security portfolio for the Global Challenges Research Fund. Raina has been a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics at the Centre for Women, Peace and Security. She is the editor for the International Journal of Traditional Arts, and an Associate Editor of the South Asian Studies Journal. Her new book ‘Creative Economies of Culture in South Asia – Performers and Craftspeople’ in Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series, London came out in December 2024.