Senior Lecturer in Fashion Design
Ezinma Mbeledogu joined UCA in 2007, she is a Senior Lecturer in Fashion Design, and a published fashion specialist author. Fashion Design Research (1st edition) has been translated into Spanish, Mandarin and Korean. She has worked at three other universities and has held external examiner tenures at five universities in the UK, some with international partners.
Bio
Ezinma specialised in Fashion Womenswear for her undergraduate degree at Central St Martin’s School of Art, and for her Masters at the Royal College of Art. Her natural interest in the social aspects of people saw her undertake an additional Masters in Social Anthropology at Goldsmiths College, University of London.
Ezinma worked in the fashion industry as a freelance designer and in film as a costume designer and break-down artist. As a fashion stylist, she worked on fashion editorials, commercials and music videos. Her eponymous fashion label launched in 2005 and sold in London and Japan.
Ezinma is the co-chair of the British Society of Gerontology’s, Creative Ageing Special Interest Group (SIG). She is also a fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, manufactures and commerce (RSA).
Research statement
Ezinma is a PhD candidate at UCA, her supervisors are Dr Victoria Kelley (material culture) and Dr Hannah Zeilig (dementia studies). The research currently being undertaken by Ezinma explores the inter-relatedness of dress and identity and to what extent this relationship might contribute to our understanding of people living with dementia.
Conferences:
Deep roots: the inextricable mesh of dress and identity and its persistence into later life. An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis study
- Inequalities and Health Summit: Call for Action, 2024, Liverpool Hope University
New possibilities: Dress within the care home
- BSA Joint Study Group One Day Conference: Invisible Bodies: Race, Embodiment and the Life-Course, 2018, University of Kent
Garments as transitional objects within a care home setting: creating new possibilities by re-evaluating the subordinate sense of touch.
- First International Arts and Dementia Conference 2017, at the Royal Society of Public Health. The conference was sponsored by the Alzheimer’s Society, Canterbury Christ Church University, the Royal Society for Public Health, and supported by the Wellcome Trust.
- Somatic Shifts: The Body and Beyond in Creative and Critical Research Conference 2017 at the University for the Creative Arts, Rochester
- The 21st World Congress of the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics (IAGG) in San Francisco, in 2017.
Massive Open On-line Course:
Identity, dress and BAME communities (week 4)
Dementia and the Arts: Sharing practice, developing understanding and enhancing lives UCL (University College London), 2018, Futurelearn.com.
Professional Membership, Affiliation and Consultancy
- Co-Chair of the BSG Creative Ageing Special interest group (SIG)
- Treasurer of the BSG Emerging Researchers in Ageing (ERA)
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (2010)
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
- Member of Emerging Researchers in Ageing
- Member of Royal Society for Public Health
- Member of the British Society of Gerontology (BSG)
- Member of Fashion and the Arts Creating Equity (FACE)
- Fashion Design Research Book launch at the Fashion and Textiles Museum, London (October 2014)
- Panel discussion at the Fashion and Textiles Museum, London (October 2014)
- Talk series at the Saatchi Gallery, London (October 2016)
- Central St Martins, University Arts London, Graduate Diploma in Fashion
- Liverpool John Moores University, BA (Hons) Fashion Design and Communication
- University of Gloucestershire, BA (Hons) Fashion Design
- University of East London, BA (Hons) Fashion Design
- Birmingham City University, BA (Hons) Fashion Design
Commissions:
- Oriki - October 2005, Royal College of Art.
- Kulture to Couture show - November 2006, The V&A Museum.
- Featured in Black, S. (2006) ‘Sculpted’ In: Fashioning Fabrics. London: Black Dog Publishing. pp. 102 -105.
- Mbonu, E. 2014. Fashion Design Research. London: Laurence King. Translated into Spanish, Mandarin and Korean.
- Mbonu, E. 2015. Fashion School Survival Guide. London: Laurence King.
- Mbeledogu, E. 2022. Fashion Design Research. 2edn. London: Laurence King.