Nathaniel Dafydd Beard

Course Director

Email: nathaniel.beard@culc.coventry.ac.uk

Course Director for MSc International Fashion Marketing and MSc International Fashion Marketing with Extended Professional Practice, Nathaniel is co-founder of the Fashion Research Network (FRN), a platform to support the promotion of fashion and dress research through symposiums, events and publications.

Nathaniel’s PhD research at the Royal College of Art concerns ‘Fashion Cities and Style Centres: The Emergence of Contemporary Fashion Cultures’ (working title). In September 2012, evolving from this work, Nathaniel convened and project managed “Fashioning the City: Exploring Fashion Cultures, Structures and Systems”, the first full-scale international conference on fashion to be held at the Royal College of Art.

His work has been published in Fashion Theory: Journal of Dress, Body and Culture, Address: Journal of Fashion Writing and Criticism, BIAS: Journal of Dress Practice, Sexymachinery and Arc, and in book chapters in Germany, Italy, the UK and the USA. Nathaniel is a regular presenter and commentator on Fashion, Cities and Culture at conferences in the UK and abroad.

Qualifications

  • Professional Development Course for External Examiners, Advance HE (2020)
  • PgCert in Academic Practice in Higher Education, Coventry University (2017)
  • MA Mode, Vormgeving en Strategie, ArtEZ Hogeschool voor de kunsten Arnhem, Arnhem, the Netherlands (2003)
  • BA (Hons) Fashion Management, London College of Fashion, London UK (2001)

Professional and Industry Memberships

  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • Co-founder, Fashion Research Network (FRN), established in 2013
  • Academic Review Panel Member for Shapeshifting – Transformative Paradigms of Fashion and Textile Design, Conference, AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand, 14-16 April 2014

Research and Consultancy

Nathaniel is co-founder of the Fashion Research Network (FRN), established in 2013 as a platform to promote fashion and dress research. The FRN provides a space for discussion about the nature of fashion and dress research and to date has held over 60 events. Previous collaborators and partners include: Centre for Fashion Curation/London College of Fashion, Courtauld Institute of Art, Coventry University London, fig-2, ICA, INIVA, Leeds Arts University, Museum at FIT New York, Parsons The New School for Design, Phoenix Art Museum, Royal College of Art, Somerset House, Tate Modern, University of Cape Town, and the V&A Museum.

Publications and Scholarship Activities

  • Lucia Savi, Alexis Romano, Ellen Sampson, Nathaniel Dafydd Beard, Editors (2018) Special Issue Hair Revisited - Fashion Theory: Journal of Dress Body and Culture, Vol. 22 Issue 6. London and New York, NY: Routledge.
  • ‘Fashioning the City: un’esplorazione delle culture, delle structure e dei sistemi della moda’ (2016) in Alessandra Vaccari, Editor, Moda, città e immaginari, Milan: Mimesis Edizioni.
  • ‘Fashion Monitor: Surveillance as a Fashion Skill,’ (2015) in BIAS: Journal of Dress Practice, Issue 3, Fashion and Surveillance, New York, NY: Parsons, The New School for Design.
  • ‘Figureheads and Apparitions: The Ministers of Style,’ (2014) in BIAS: Journal of Dress Practice, Issue 2, Fashion and Politics, New York, NY: Parsons The New School for Design.
  • ‘Chameleon, Hybrid, Medusa, Octopus: Fashion as Polymath,’ (2013) in Arc, Issue 17.2, Crossings: The Polymath Issue, London: Royal College of Art.
  • ‘Fashion as Disruption,’ Catalogue Essay in Nils Jean, Editor (2013) Disruption - Research RCA Biennial Exhibition Catalogue, London: Royal College of Art.
  • ‘Exhibition Review – Fashion Clash Maastricht,’ (2012) in Valerie Steele, Editor, Fashion Theory: Journal of Dress, Body and Culture, Volume 16, Number 1, March, London and New York, NY: Berg.
  • ‘From Out of the Box’, in Johannes Reponen, Editor (2011) Address - Journal for Fashion Writing and Criticism, London: Address Publications.

Conference Papers (selected): 

  • Peripheral Fashion Cities: Satellites of Style, Culture and Influence, Fashion at the Periphery: An International Conference, Chicago Fashion Lyceum, 5-11 October, Chicago, USA> 
  • Cities of Arcades: Magical Dreamscapes of Fashion, Consumption and the Flâneur(se), Fast x Slow Fashion: Experiences of Fashionable Consumption, 1720-2020, 13 March, Leeds City Museum, Leeds, UK> 
  • City-Fashion-Image: Fabricating Myths, Mediating Reality, Scaling Sizes, S M L XL Zonemoda Conference, 3-5 May 2017, University of Bologna, Rimini, Italy
  • The Fashion City: Collaboration, Influence, Identity, Conference Paper presented at Fashion: 84th Anglo-American Conference of Historians, 2-3 July 2015, Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London, and Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
  • The Spectre of Paris: Beyond Haute Couture, Conference Paper presented at Fashion Colloquia Paris, 4-5 October 2012, Institut Français de la Mode, Paris, France
  • Modestad: Stylish Encounters in Antwerp, Amsterdam and Arnhem, Conference Paper presented at 9th Biennial Conference Low Countries, Big Cities, 3-5 April 2012, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
  • The Fashion City: A New Paradigm in the Cultural Landscape?, Conference Paper presented at Imaging Spaces/Places, 24-26 August 2011, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

Solo Exhibition:

  • Formatting Fashion: Thinking, Writing, Making, Speaking and Exhibiting, 27 January-29 February 2016, Coventry University London

Teaching Areas

  • Business and Research Management Methods
  • Marketing in a Global Age
  • Dissertation
  • International Fashion Marketing
  • London Live Project
  • Fashion Marketing and Communication
  • History and Future of Fashion
Coventry University joint top modern university for career prospects
University of the year shortlisted
QS Five Star Rating 2020