After a hiatus of two years CIAD’s second Biennial Dress Conference: Fibres, Threads and Fabrics: Textiles and Cloth as Material Culture is back!

The Costume Institute of the African Diaspora (CIAD) in association with London College of Fashion (LCF) and Fashion Academics Creating Equality (FACE) is proud to announce the launch of its second dress conference at the end of October 2022 to round up Black History Month celebrations.

Organised by creative director Teleica Kirkland and the CIAD Team this second dress conference, which comes after a two-year postponement due to the COVID 19 pandemic, focuses on the creation, representations and significance attributed to fabric and textiles and how those aspects of our social reality determine our feelings toward and relationship with cloth.

For this second conference we are joined by 8 academics, cultural custodians and artist practitioners from the United States, Botswana, Brazil, The Bahamas, and the UK all of whom will be discussing fascinating and engaging elements of their research and stories about their work to share the finer details of African and African Diaspora cloth and its meanings.

The resurgence of this conference welcomes Pamela Burnside, president of Creative Nassau, an alum of St Martins College of Art (now UAL: Central St Martins) and a valued friend and colleague of the CIAD organisation as the keynote speaker. Burnside brings with her a wealth of knowledge about the renaissance and continued development of Bahamian straw practice and how it lends itself to the creation of sustainable textiles.

Holding this conference during Black History Month at London College of Fashion’s central London campus highlights the collaborative work that continues between CIAD and the university and demonstrates the universities commitment to providing a platform for academic research from the African Diaspora.

Book your tickets here

Header Image: courtesy of Gallery MOMO