Jasbir Kaur
Director of Postgraduate Studies in Fashion and Textiles
Jasbir is Director of Postgraduate Studies in Fashion and Textiles. Her early career began in commercial textile design, before moving into fashion research, and is now an internationally published author in the area of textiles, and the interrelationship between that and fashion.
Biography
My early career involved developing and selling printed and woven designs for interiors, fashion and trend prediction in the UK and internationally, before transitioning to fashion research and publishing. I joined the Fashion and Textiles team at BCU over 20 years ago and am now Director of Postgraduate Studies in Fashion and Textiles, and Award Leader for MA Fashion Design and MA Textile and Surface Design.
Academic history and expertise
As a designer, I have been recognised by The Royal Society of Arts, and as an author, my first book was listed as a recommended reader in my subject area in The Times Higher Education Supplement (THE). My current research explores the modernisation and professionalisation of the Indian fashion industry in India and amongst the Indian diaspora in the West. As a child of immigrant parents who travelled from India to settle in the UK in the 1960s, this research tracks the development of the clothing of my heritage informed by observations spanning decades which now form a framework of scholarly activity in the subject. My research in this area focuses on the motivations leading to this phenomenon, and I have been invited to speak about this both nationally and internationally.
Former students
Around a third of our students go on to develop an entrepreneurial enterprise around the world that they have established and tested during their studies; others have gone on to secure industry employment at brands like Forever 21, Lane Crawford, Inditex Group, Arcadia, Ralph Lauren and as academic leaders. Central to our legacy are our alumni, who carve their paths in the industry and return to share their invaluable experiences with current cohorts.
Projects of note
I was involved in an AHRC and Innovate UK funded project that brought together artists and related user-communities in India and the UK across three strands from the creative industries, including fashion and textiles.
The project provided a perfect platform to connect Indian and UK artists who hadn’t worked with each other before through an online network that aimed to nurture cross-cultural dialogue and enable understanding. The resulting creation of new collaborative short artistic outputs was greatly rewarding and bought positive feedback and exciting new vision and opportunities to both communities, particularly as India marked 75 years of independence in 2022. Alongside this, I also contributed a chapter based on my Indian fashion research to a book entitled India at 75, Thoughts and Reflections, commemorating the birth of the modern state of India in 1947.