I am interested in in fashion as a visual language, and much of my work explores alternative ways to document creative development. I am drawn to the unseen, unfashionable and unpopular within fashion. The themes of my practice typically reflect my mood and the circumstances around me.

I am highly collaborative and routinely work across different departments and disciplines to pursue combined opportunities, which I believe are vitally important to fashion students’ success.

Academic and professional qualifications

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• PGCert Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, Manchester Metropolitan University (2017)
• MA Fashion: Fashion Graphics, Manchester Metropolitan University (2016)
• BA (Hons) Visual Communication, Erasmus Exchange, Leeds College of Art ( 2014)
• BA (Hons) Visual Communications, Faculty of Design, Ljubljana, Slovenia (2015)

Academic service (administration and management)

Manchester Fashion Institute’s Department Showcase Lead - overseeing the creative direction and organisation of the graduate exhibitions, promoting and celebrating MFI visual work. As part of this role Anze also oversees and edits the MFI Graduate Publication.

• Opening Space (2021 graduate showcase)
• From Start to Finish (2022 graduate showcase)
• Coexist (2023 graduate showcase)
• Meet the Future (2024 graduate showcase)

Undergraduate teaching

Senior Lecturer in Fashion Image on BA (Hons) Fashion Art Direction. I have led multiple units across all 3 levels of undergraduate study, with their main focus on collaboration, networking, external opportunities and contemporary visual outcomes. All of my units include an industry element, for example client brief (SEVENSTORE, Bruce Asbestos, Clifford Jago, The Reno at the Whitworth, LGBT Foundation, Public Source), showcase opportunity (Village Bookshop, Righton Exhibition Space, Graduate Fashion Week) or international collaboration (Donghua University, Shanghai), giving students first-hand experience of the industry and improving their employability.

I am an experienced tutor and have had success supporting students with publication design and development (multiple Graduate Fashion Week Publication finalists and winner), building on my own industry experience of running an independent publication (New Edge Magazine 2014-2021).

I have experience of teaching across Foundation (Foundation Diploma in Art and Design (Fashion and Textiles pathway) and Masters (Manchester School of Art MA Design Network) degrees.

External examiner roles

External Examiner for BA (Hons) Fashion Communication and Styling at Middlesex University.

Research

Invited Papers and Discussions

“LOOKS” an exhibition of cross-disciplinary transformative perspectives post covid enabling human-centric values and practice based professional skills.(Ermenc, A., De-Lacy, B., Easom, S., Genders, S.) 26th Annual Conference of the International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes, Ewha Womens University, Seoul, Rep of Korea April 2024.

Awarded the IFFTI Initiative Award 2024

‘LOOKS’ an exhibition fostering a community of collaboration, co-creation and respect. (Ermenc, A., De-Lacy, B., Easom, S., Genders, S.) De-Fashioning Education: A Critical Thinking and Making Conference. The Berlin University of the Arts, Germany September 2023. Digital Multilogue | Learning-Projects

Speaker and panel member (Local Practices), Fashion Systems Conference, Ljubljana, November 2019

Projects and initiatives

“LOOKS” is an annual, collaborative interdisciplinary project at Manchester Fashion Institute, designed to provide second-year students with hands-on experience in industry-based collaborative practices. Selected garments from BA (Hons) Fashion and BA (Hons) Fashion Design and Technology students, are captured by BA (hons) Fashion Art Direction students through styling, casting, art direction and image making producing a series of lookbook images. These outcomes have been showcased through public exhibitions and screenings, celebrating the talents and efforts of the participants over the years. (Ermenc, A., De-Lacy, B., Easom, S., Genders, S.)

Odd One Out/In

‘Odd One Out/In’ explores concepts of ‘Otherness’ and interpretations thereof, inviting artists from different disciplines to reflect on this idea and to present their perspective through visual language.

The various responses in differing media to aspects of ‘Otherness’ include examinations of identity, exclusion, belonging, health and well-being, gender, politics and Queer. The artworks seek to communicate these topics through both conceptual and empirical approaches.

Collaborative exhibition curated by the Other Grounds Collective.
17th Nov - 16th Dec 2017, PS Mirabel (Manchester)

The Other Self – A Textile Perspective on Exploring Identity and Belonging

The conceptual outset of the exhibition of textile portraits of Jan Bejšovec and Anže Ermenc is based on their differences of experience and interests. The artists are of different nationality and age. On top of that, they have never met each other. At the time when Jan Bejšovec, from Berlin, first arrived in Ljubljana, Anže Ermenc was leaving Ljubljana for Manchester. Despite numerous differences they are related by their mutual interest in contemporary textile arts, so they have both accepted the invitation of the Alkatraz Gallery and joined their efforts in a way we had not expected. Initially, the exhibition was conceived as a group exhibition of two artists who approach the idea of textile in their own, different way. However, the artists got connected and prepared their own concept in a mutual dialogue that was not only artistic, but actually also curatorial. So the exhibition is now somewhere between a group and a solo exhibition, for they have become a tandem - for this project – complementing each other in the way they carry out their joint authorial setting. The main motif of the exhibition is textile portraits with a twist.

29th Nov - 13th Dec 2016, Galerija Alkatraz (Ljubljana, Slovenia)