Ms Marloes ten Bhömer
Faculties, departments and locations
- Kingston School of Art
- Department of 3D Design
- Department of Fashion
- School of Design
Senior Research Fellow
- Email:
- [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.
Publications
Research as object: towards a material and cultural investigation
ten Bhomer, Marloes (2017). [Published]
Breaking the script
ten Bhomer, Marloes, Hoette, Ruby, Pollmann, Alexa, Poslethwaite, Susan and Thiel, Kat (2017). In: Thornquist, Clemens, Bigolin, Ricarda, (eds.), Boras, Sweden:pp 226-231 [Published]
Research as object, towards a material and cultural investigation
ten Bhomer, Marloes (2017). In: Thornquist, Clemens, Bigolin, Ricarda, (eds.), Boras, Sweden:pp 220-225 [Published]
Walking in film as muscle memory training and movement bias development?
ten Bhomer, Marloes(2022). [Published]
Women and mobility
ten Bhomer, Marloes(2020). [Published]
The gendering of a woman's gait and shoes as design subject
ten Bhomer, Marloes(2020). [Published]
Women's gait in cinema as design subject
ten Bhomer, Marloes(2020). [Published]
The parameters required to support a woman in motion
ten Bhomer, Marloes(2019). [Published]
Alternative fashion modes in education
ten Bhomer, Marloes(2018). [Published]
Walking women: shoe construction and female gait as a design subject
ten Bhomer, Marloes(2018). [Published]
Research as object: towards a material and cultural investigation
ten Bhomer, Marloes(2017). [Published]
Research as object
ten Bhomer, Marloes(2016). [Published]
Toward an alternative methodology
van Heeren, Clive, ten Bhomer, Marloes and Fleming, Kathryn(2016). [Published]
Cultural and associative opportunities and limitations of traditional and technological production
ten Bhomer, Marloes(2014). [Published]
What is the relevance of the trench coat in the time of drone wars?
ten Bhomer, Marloes(2014). [Published]
Research practice
Ten Bhomer, Marloes(2013). [Published]
Loopshoe / 2004
Ten Bhomer, Marloes (2022) [Published]
O ato de Caminhar = The Act of Walking: Marloes ten Bhömer
ten Bhomer, Marloes (2021) [Published]
The Path She Walks
ten Bhomer, Marloes (2018) [Published]
Space for Fashion Thinking & Practice: Review, Reflect, Revise
ten Bhomer, Marloes (2017) [Published]
Beats Working
ten Bhomer, Marloes and Toran, Noam (2017) [Published]
The Activated Object: Product Design Finals
ten Bhomer, Marloes (2016) [Published]
Shapeshifters, 3D Printing the Future
Ten Bhomer, Marloes (2016) [Published]
Bluepanelshoe
ten Bhomer, Marloes (2015) [Published]
Annabelle, Barbra, Becky, Alexis, Krystle, Ellen, Olive, Eve and Kirsten, not stumbling, sliding, sinking falling or oblivious
ten Bhomer, Marloes (2014) [Published]
Material Compulsion
ten Bhomer, Marloes (2013) [Published]
Women in Various States
ten Bhomer, Marloes (2012) [Published]
Videos of my work
-
Material Compulsion
-
Walking Women_Designer in Residency at Kyoto D-Lab, Kyoto Institute of Technology
-
The Path She Walks