Ms Marloes ten Bhömer

Kingston School of Art
Department of 3D Design
Department of Fashion
School of Design

Senior Research Fellow

[email protected]

About

I am a Senior Research Fellow in Design and chair of the Research Through Design group at Kingston University.

My practice-based research focuses on women's footwear from technical, material and cultural perspectives. My current research considers the role design and media play in the social and cultural formation of the ‘high-heeled woman', in turn challenging the hardened typologies that uphold repressive stereotypes with regard to women's social and physical mobility.

I am interested in expanding and diversifying the theoretical and contextual frameworks of fashion through both my research practice and teaching. From 2012 until 2015 I was Professor of Fashion at the Universiät der Künste in Berlin where I initiated a multi-disciplinary approach, seeking to challenge pre-conceived and limiting parameters in Fashion education. I am also a member of OUTSKIRTS, a collective of fashion practitioners and academics who explore and develop Practice Based Fashion Research to empower alternative modes of being and doing fashion subsequently redefining and repositioning the discipline and nurturing discursive fashion.

Pursuing my interests via my research practice, exhibitions, conference presentations and pedagogy, I lecture and run workshops regularly at a number of international institutions.

Qualifications

MA Design Products, Royal College of Art London, 2003
BA Hons 3D design, Higher School of Arts Arnhem, ArtEZ, 2001

Domains

With my work I aim to consistently challenge generic typologies of women's shoes through experiments with non-traditional technologies and material techniques. By reinventing the design methodology and the process by which footwear is made, the resulting shoes serve as unique examples of new aesthetic and structural possibilities, while also serving to criticise the conventional status of women's shoes as cultural objects.

My research-based practice is focused on the social and cultural construct of the ‘high-heeled woman', and the intersections between craft and technological production, design methodology, the iconology of materials and feminist theory. I aim to dissect the role design and media play in the social and cultural formation of the high-heeled woman, in turn challenging the hardened typologies that uphold repressive stereotypes with regard to women's social and physical mobility. My objective is to understand and propose alternatives to the status quo.

The research informs critical works produced in a variety of mediums ranging from film, objects, installations and shoe-artifacts. It is disseminated in a variety of contexts through international exhibitions, conferences, artist talks and in both academic and non-academic publications. Notable exhibitions were held at the Museum of Art and Design New York, Modemuseum in Hasselt and the Victoria and Albert Museum. My work was nominated for the Designs of the Year, Design Museum London (2009) and was selected for the Jerwood Contemporary Makers Prize and Exhibition (2010) and won the Best Idea award at Copenhagen Fashion Film Festival 2019. My work is part of the permanent collection of the Fashion Institute of Technology New York. From 2011-2013 I was a Stanley Picker Fellow, Kingston University and in 2008 a Designer in Residence at D-Lab, Kyoto Institute of Technology. I welcome proposals from prospective PhD and MA by Research students working in the areas of discursive fashion, footwear, embodiment, gender, craft and technology.

Qualifications

Chair of the Research Through Design Group, Kingston University

Specialisms

Footwear and fashion typologies
Fashion and embodiment; gender, design, movement and mobility
High heeled footwear in relation to gender representations in various media
Critical fashion practice
Craft, technological manufacturing and design methodology, from practical and cultural perspectives.

Ms Marloes ten Bhömer

About

Qualifications

Domains

Publications

Videos of my work

Material Compulsion

Walking Women_Designer in Residency at Kyoto D-Lab, Kyoto Institute of Technology

The Path She Walks

Ms Marloes ten Bhömer

About

Qualifications

Domains

Research

Publications

Book Sections/Chapters

Conference Items

Creative Works

Videos of my work

Material Compulsion

Walking Women_Designer in Residency at Kyoto D-Lab, Kyoto Institute of Technology

The Path She Walks