Fiona Raeside

As Senior Lecturer in the Fashion Subject area in the School of Design, my role is to provide subject leadership; working with our industry partners and facilitating academic development to promote excellent employability opportunities and provide a rich and successful research-rich learning and teaching environment. We believe that live and collaborative projects and competitions are vital in the facilitation of effective learning for students, giving them an important experience of developing their own ‘handwriting’ whilst answering commercial briefs. We work with Ralph Lauren, Gap, Old Navy, Lacoste, Berghaus, H&M, Tommy Hilfiger, Trend Bible, Fashion Revolution, Dr. Martens, Hainsworth, Gloverall and many other organisations and brands to offer the students internship and post-graduation career opportunities.

I teach into the BA(Hons) Fashion Design & Marketing programme on subjects including; Fashion Trend Forecasting, Fashion Design, Fashion Illustration, Contemporary Design Influences and Fashion Marketing. In 2017, I was recognised as a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

My research explores the rich culture of miners’ banners in North-East England; a subject I became interested in following my commission to design the contemporary Saint Cuthbert’s banner which now hangs at the entrance to Saint Cuthbert’s shrine in Durham Cathedral. Although the last colliery closed in 1993, both historic and replica miners’ banners continue to be paraded at the annual Durham Miners’ Gala (DMG), which attracts greater crowds now than when the pits were fully operational in the 1970s. As new and replica banners are being made and taken to the Durham Miners’ Gala, I am now asking the question around the ‘worth’ and ‘value’ of a contemporary banner and whether they can ever hope to possess the ‘aura’ of the original ones - now retired from their working lives. My PhD is entitled Social fabric: A study of community representation through contemporary banner-making in North-East England,and considers contemporary textile banners in terms of artistic expression, post-industrial community representation and conduit for emotional wellbeing.

My research explores the rich culture of miners’ banners in North-East England; a subject I became interested in following my commission to design the contemporary Saint Cuthbert’s banner which now hangs at the entrance to Saint Cuthbert’s shrine in Durham Cathedral. Although the last colliery closed in 1993, both historic and replica miners’ banners continue to be paraded at the annual Durham Miners’ Gala (DMG), which attracts greater crowds now than when the pits were fully operational in the 1970s. As new and replica banners are being made and taken to the Durham Miners’ Gala, I am now asking the question around the ‘worth’ and ‘value’ of a contemporary banner and whether they can ever hope to possess the ‘aura’ of the original ones - now retired from their working lives. My PhD is entitled Social fabric: A study of community representation through contemporary banner-making in North-East England,and considers contemporary textile banners in terms of artistic expression, post-industrial community representation and conduit for emotional wellbeing.