Dr Lezley George

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Lezley George
About
Teaching and learning
Research

About

I am a lecturer in Critical and Historical Studies and responsible for teaching and supporting the Fashion BA degree. I started my career in fashion as a design practitioner and ran my eponymous fashion label based in London for twenty years, which produced womenswear collections that sold in boutiques and department stores worldwide and showcased at international fashion week events.  

Since 2008, I have been lecturing in fashion design and critical cultural studies at various universities, including spending eight years (2008-2016) teaching in the United Arab Emirates. Before joining Kingston in February 2021 and after returning to the UK, I taught at London Metropolitan University and London College of Fashion (UAL), where I continue to teach at undergraduate and postgraduate levels as an Associate Lecturer. 

I hold a Ph.D. in Critical Fashion Studies (London College of Fashion, UAL), which is a theory-based ethnography of fashion practices in the field of abaya-led design in the United Arab Emirates. My research remains focused on examining global fashion design cultures and their practices, as well as gender studies, feminist visual activisms, new media communities and entrepreneurship. I am currently working on turning my thesis into a monograph, alongside working on journal articles and book chapters covering various aspect from this research, including Emirati masculine fashion. My research interests intersect with my teaching practice in which I am committed to decolonising the curriculum of fashion studies.  

Academic responsibilities

Senior Lecturer Critical and Historical Studies

Qualifications

  • Ph.D (Fashion) London College of Fashion UAL (2020)
  • BA. (Hons) University of East London (1988)
  • FHEA 2022

Teaching and learning

Undergraduate courses taught

Research

My ongoing research examines global fashion design cultures and their practices and takes an ethnographical, visual and material culture approach. I am interested in fashion producers and consumers based outside of the ‘Western' fashion hemisphere and their relationships to and alternative approaches from the existing global dominant fashion system. I am currently working on a monograph from my Ph.D. (Modesty, Dress-codes and ‘Local Taste': Examining Abaya-led Fashion Practices in The United Arab Emirates), a book chapter that investigates coffee fashions and sartorial representation practices in the UAE  and other strands of research exploring  fashion entrepreneurialism in the Gulf. Other areas of interest are feminist visual activisms and feminist pedagogies. 

Journal Articles: 

2021: Kanduras and "Khaleeji style": investigating Gulf masculinities and dress', Critical Studies in Men's Fashion, vol 8: 1&2, pp73-91. 

2020: Book Review: Pious fashion: how Muslim women dress, (Elizabeth Bucar, 2017) International Journal of Fashion Studies, (vol.7: 2, 2020)

2017: ‘In-between the Global and National Self: The Abaya and Asian Transnational Design'. The Asian Design Encyclopaedia (Vol. 4: Transnational Issues in Asian Design) London: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Conferences: 

2020: Kanduras and ‘Khaleeji style': investigating Gulf masculinities and dress. Presented at Globalising Men's Style (LCF - London Online)

2020: Transposing appropriation as market opportunity and cultural reclamation: mobilizing abaya-led design for travel. Presented at CAA2020, Chicago, USA.  (Co-Chair of Panel: Cross-cultural dress: problematizing the cultural appropriation vs fashion inspiration debate)

2019: ‘Popping–up': Re-enchantment in the Gulf abaya-consumptionscape. Presented at FCVC2019, Nantes, France. 

2017: "Designing for girls like us": Tastes, Tactics and Trendsetters. Presented at Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of the MENA Conference, Sussex University Brighton. 

2016: Locally Trending Trans-global Style: The Travelling Abaya. Presented at the Non-Western Fashion Conference (NWFC) University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium. 

2016: Back to Black? Abaya Culture, Identity and Fashion in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) presented at Seminar for Arabian Studies (special panellist) British Museum, London 

2014: Fast Forward? The Role of the Fashion Week in Defining a Middle Eastern Fashion Identity. Presented at 6th Global Fashion Conference, Mansfield College, Oxford, UK(Published in e-journal: Fash6:  Interdisciplinary.net)

Areas of specialism

  • Fashion: theory and practice
  • Middle East and Gulf visual and material culture
  • Decolonising fashion studies
  • Gender studies (Feminist/activism)
  • Fashion geographies