Professor Fiona Hackney

Professor of Fashion

Professor Fiona Hackney

Professor of Fashion

Email: f.hackney@mmu.ac.uk

I have been Professor of Fashion at Manchester Metropolitan University since 2019 when I was appointed to lead the REF research submission for Manchester Fashion Institute and develop research culture in the Department. Prior to that I led fashion research at the University of Wolverhampton and a research cluster exploring community engagement and social design at Falmouth University. I have taught in many universities including University of the Arts London and the University for the Creative Arts and am passionate about collaboration with external partners/stakeholders and interdisciplinary research.

Academic and professional qualifications

MA (Edin) Fine Art, MA (RCA/V&A) Design History, PhD UoL Modern History

Projects and initiatives

Externally-funded Projects:

2023: NWCDTP Collaborative Doctoral Award: ‘Re-making Menswear: Crafting a modern Indian heritage model for inclusive, conscious style-fashion-dress’ in collaboration with partner Craftspace. Prof Hackney PI. 80K approx. Named student Lokesh Ghai to start Sept 2024 (Full time).

2022-23: ‘Making Care Visible (MCV): co-making care with, in and through communities’ – Engagement and research UKRI call: ‘Engage the public with the future of health and care in the UK’. Prof Hackney PI, Dr Lynn Setterington (Design) Co-I. Partners: Innovation Health Manchester, Arts Well, and Craftspace. 40K (unsuccessful)

2019-2021: ‘RAV: Raising Awareness of Value: Women and Crafts in India’ British Council, Making Futures, India (20K total 10K to MMU) Shalini Gupta Pearl Academy India. Prof Hackney academic lead MMU.

2017–2019: AHRC Designing a Sensibility for Sustainable Clothing Choices: Prof Hackney Co-I with Exeter University leading. £450,000 in total. (AH/R000123/1)

2017-2019: AHRC Maker-Centric: building place-based, co-making communities (100k) Follow on Funding for Impact and Engagement (100k) Follow on Funding for Impact and Engagement, Prof Hackney PI. (AH/P009638/1)

2016: The Maker Movement: 50Kwork package for D4D: Disability and Community: Dis/engagement, dis/enfranchisement, dis/parity and dissent (AH/N004108/1): disability and alienation. Disability, creative making and performance. 1 April 2016-Jan 2017.

2016: AHRC Connected Communities Festival 2016: Community Futures and Utopias. Making-Centric: Community Co-speculation, Prototyping Future Thinking as Living Heritage.

Augmented Award £15,000 plus supplementary award £5000. D. Fig, Craftspace: PI, Dr Hackney Co-I. (March-October 2016)

2015: Protopolitics (£15,000) competitive funding from AHRC-funded Protopublics Social Design Sprint Workshop to develop prototype methodology connecting older people and policy makers through design fictions. Dr Hackney Co-I, with partners at Lancaster, Cardiff and Brighton Universities, and partners: Age UK, and the All-Party Parliamentary Design and Innovation Group (APDIG) (June-September 2015). The pilot leads to an opportunity to bid for a larger funded project.

2015: Future Thinking for Social Living (£9,200) R&I funding Falmouth University Pilot Project with Coastline Housing & Arts for Health Cornwall (March – June)

2015: Making Soundwaves: Community Voices as Heritage Activism, AHRC Connected Communities Festival (£9,000 +) engagement project with Tate St Ives (March-September)

2014-15: Dr Hackney P.I. (£10,000) #wellMAKING: Craftivist Garden: 1 July 2014 – 30 January 2015 working with Arts for Health Cornwall, Voluntary Arts England and Craftivist Collective, this AHR-funded activist project raises consciousness about craft and wellbeing and was developed from the Beyond the Tookit Symposium (below). It is nationwide and will conclude with an event in London.

2014: March-July 1-2: Connected Communities Festival, Cardiff. Dr Hackney P.I. project researchers and community partners received funding (£44,323.00) to run a series of events and breakout workshops including: Crafts Bazaar installation; two breakout workshops; films; posters and graphics; ‘Killing Time’ performance (music and knitters) and Craftivist Garden #wellmaking launch (see above (March 2014-July 2014):

2014: Beyond the Toolkit: Understanding & Evaluating Crafts Praxis for Health and Wellbeing, 19-20 February, Falmouth University: AHRC-funded Supplementary Knowledge Exchange/Dissemination Event (£10,000: June 2013-March 2014);a collaboration between Arts for Health, Cornwall and Falmouth Universityto explore the benefits of craft and creative making for health and well-being. The Symposium included national and international speakers, workshops led by creative practitioners and an exhibition of work by community groups in a range of arts for health settings.

2013: Dr Fiona Hackney and colleagues received funding (£12,025.50) to run a workshop, create a film and exhibition materials as part of the AHRC Connected Communities Showcase events in London: ‘Crafting Communities: The Politics of Making, Craft, Participatory Engagement, Health and Wellbeing’ at AHRC Connected Communities Showcase Event, London 12-13 March. : http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/News-and-Events/Watch-and-Listen/Pages/Connected-Communities-Showcase-Event.aspx and Edinburgh: Co-producing CARE: Community asset-based research & enterprise: Dr Fiona Hackney, Deidre Figereido Craftspace, Hannah Maughan, Bryony Stokes. http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/News-and-Events/Events/Pages/Connected-Communities-Edinburgh-Showcase.aspx

2013-2014: Co-producing CARE: Community Asset-based Research & Enterprise, AHRC standard application (£125,000). Dr Hackney P.I. Bid in collaboration with Northumbria University and Craftspace, Birmingham, follows Connected Communities Summit.(Feb 2013 – June 2014). https://cocreatingcare.wordpress.com/the-project/

2012-2015: Research Studentship: AHRC: Collaborative Doctoral Award (CDA) ‘Use Your Hands for Happiness’: Crafts practice as a means of building community assets, health and well-being’ in partnership with Arts for Health Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (AFHC). Dr Hackney P.I., Co- I.s, Dr Nicola Thomas & AFHC Director Jayne Howard. (£54,000). http://www.artsforhealthcornwall.org.uk/news/use-your-hands-for-happiness

2012: Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Research Grant (£100,000) ‘Community-Appropriated Research Model’ (CARM). P.I., Dr. Anne Light, Co-I., Dr. Hackney.

2011: AHRC Network Grant (£34,000) for ‘Connecting Craft and Communities’. P.I., Dr. Nicola Thomas, Co-I.s, Dr. Hackney and Dr. Bunnell. https://connectingcraftcommunities.wordpress.com/

2010: AHRC Project Development Proposal (£15,000).‘Genealogies of Place’. P.I., Professor Hamish Fyfe, Co-I.s., Dr. Hackney, Dr. Frohlich, and Steve Thompson.

2008-15: AHRC Research Studentship (open competition) £49,024. ‘Reconstruction Deconstructed: A study of post-war housing in Plymouth’.

2008-13: Three European Social Fund (ESF) Studentships totalling £180,000. 'The Mingei and its Transnational Reception: A Comparative Study of Studio Pottery in South West England and South West Canada'; ‘Performing Memory: Art, Community, Archive and Place’; and ‘Bartram Hiles (1872-1927) Art, Commerce & Disability’.

2008-10: Heritage Lottery Funded (HLF) project, ‘Memory Bay: The Art Community in St. Ives, Cornwall’. Jointly developed with Tate St Ives, St Ives Archive, Leach Pottery and Porthmeor Studios (£50,000). Dr. Hackney was a member of the development team and steering committee.

2008: Design History Society (DHS) grant (£1,500) to support keynote speakers, Professor Bruno Latour, Professor Jeremy Myerson and designer Jan Konings at ‘Networks of Design’ conference, Falmouth University

2008: Higher Education Academy grant (£3,000) to support research on design pedagogy at ‘Networks of Design’ conference, FU.

2001: Design History Society Research Award (£1,000) to support research on print culture and women’s magazines.

1998-99: University of the Arts London (UAL) Research award (£1,500) to support research on print culture and women’s magazines.

Research

Research Interests

My teaching and research focus on fashion cultures, twentieth century print media (interwar and 1940s women’s magazines), and the social and affective benefits of creative making. This involves issues of dress and identity, memory, gender and sexuality, heritage, ethics and sustainability, slow fashion, modest fashion, participatory textiles, and community engagement. Working with esteemed colleagues (academics, practitioners, and cultural leaders in Manchester, the West Midlands and elsewhere) I have developed the concepts ‘quiet activism’ and ‘well-making’ to better understand and evidence the power of cultural affect through creativity and collaboration.

Developing externally funded projects has been central to my research practice, most recently the doctoral studentship ‘Re-making Menswear: Crafting a modern Indian heritage model for inclusive, conscious style-fashion-dress’ in collaboration with external partner Craftspace (https://Craftspace.co.uk). Recent publications include: ‘Maker-centricity and ‘edge-places of creativity’: CARE-full Making in a CARE-less World’, special issue on race and craft economies for the European Journal of Cultural Studies and ‘Changing the World Not Just our Wardrobes: A Sensibility for Sustainable Clothing, Care and Quiet Activism’ in the Routledge Fashion Companion.

I would be very happy to consider postgraduate supervision in these and related areas.

Book Chapters

Hackney, F., Figueiredo, D., Loveday, M., 2023. 'Better together: Co-creating living heritage, community assets and enterprise'. In Craft Communities, pp. 119-131.

Hackney, F., Hill, K., Saunders, C., Willett, J., 2021. 'Changing the World not Just our Wardrobes: a sensibility for sustainable clothing, care, and quiet activism'. In Paulicelli, E., Manlow, V., Wissinger, E. (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Fashion Studies, Routledge.

Hackney, F., 2020. 'Beyond Utility: Pushing Frontiers in Women's Monthlies: Modern Woman 1943-1951'. In Forster, L., Hollows, J. (eds.) Women's Periodicals and Print Culture in Britain, 1940s-2000s: The Postwar and Contemporary Period, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.

Rana, M., Hackney, F., 2018. 'Making and Material Affect: From Learning and Teaching to Sharing and Listening'. In Prior, R.W. (eds.) Using Art as Research in Learning and Teaching: Multidisciplinary Approaches Across the Arts, pp. 145-162, Intellect.

Hackney, F., Figueiredo, D., Onions, L., Rogers, G., Milovanovic, J., 2018. 'Being Maker-Centric: making as method for self-organising and achieving craft impact in local communities and economies'. In Bell, E., Mangia, G., Taylor, S., Toraldo, M.L. (eds.) The Organization of Craft Work: identities, meanings, and materiality, pp. 235-254, Routledge, London.

Hackney, F., 2018. 'Woman Appeal. A New Rhetoric of Consumption: Women’s Domestic Magazines in the 1920s and 1930s'. In Clay, C., DiCenzo, M., Green, B., Hackney, F. (eds.) Women's Periodicals and Print Culture in Britain, 1918-1939: The Interwar Period, pp. 465-490, Edinburgh University Press.

Hackney, F., 2016. 'Getting a Living , Getting a Life: Leonore Eyles, Employment and Agony, 1925-1930'. In Ritchie, R., Hawkins, S., Phillips, N., Kleinberg, S.J. (eds.) Women in Magazines: Research, Representation, Production and Consumption, pp. 107-124, Routledge.

Journal Articles

Saunders, C., Griffin, I., Hackney, F., Barbieri, A., Hill, K.J., West, J., Willett, J., 2024. 'A social practices approach to encourage sustainable clothing choices', Sustainability, 16 (3).

Hackney, F., Figueiredo, D., Loveday, M., Onions, L., Rogers, G., 2022. 'Maker-centricity and 'edge-places of creativity': CARE-full Making in a CARE-less World', European Journal of Cultural Studies, 25 (6), pp. 1572-1596.

Hackney, F., Rana, M., Gant, N., Hill, K., 2022. 'Guest Editorial: Well-Making and Making-Well: Craft, Design and Everyday Creativity for Health and Well-Being', Journal of Applied Arts and Health, 13 (3), pp. 283-290.

Hackney, F., 2022. 'Interview with Angela Maddock', Journal of Applied Arts and Health, 13 (3), pp. 417-426.

Hackney, F., Setterington, L., 2022. 'Crafting with a purpose: how the ‘work’ of the workshop makes, promotes and embodies well-being', Journal of Applied Arts and Health, 13 (3), pp. 307-324.

Hackney, F., Bigham, J., 2022. 'A Cottage of One’s Own: Making Modern Women through Word and Image in Interwar’s Women’s Homemaking Magazines', Journal of Modern Periodical Studies, 3 (1), pp. 103-141.

Willett, J., Saunders, C., Hackney, F., Hill, K., 2022. 'The affective economy and fast fashion: materiality, embodied learning and developing a sensibility for sustainable clothing', Journal of Material Culture, 27 (3), pp. 219-237.

Hackney, F., saunders, C., Willet, J., Hill, K., Griffin, I., 2020. 'Stitching a Sensibility 4 Sustainable Clothing: quiet activism, affect and community agency', Journal of Arts and Communities, 10 (1-2).

Hackney, F., Baines, E., Bloodworth, J., McKenzie, A., Anderson, C., Wells, A., Howard, C., 2020. 'Talking Textiles, Making Value: Catalyzing Fashion, Dress, and Textiles Heritage in the Midlands', Journal of Textile Design Research and Practice, 8 (1), pp. 84-111.

Hackney, F., 2019. 'Book Review: Alan Powers, Enid Marx: The Pleasures of Pattern', Textile History, 50 (2).

Hackney, F., 2019. 'The Modern Embroidery Movement', CRAFT RESEARCH, 10 (1), pp. 149-153.

Hackney, F., Maughan, H., Desmarais, S., 2016. 'The Power of Quiet: Re-making Affective Amateur and Professional Textiles Agencies', Journal of Textile Design Research and Practice, 4 (1), pp. 33-62.

Hackney, F., 2015. 'Oral History in the Visual Arts', CRAFT RESEARCH, 6 (1), pp. 133-138.

Hackney, F., 2013. 'Quiet activism and the new amateur the power of home and hobby crafts', Design and Culture, 5 (2), pp. 169-193.

Hackney, F., 2006. ''Use your hands for happiness': Home craft and make-do-and-Mend in British women's magazines in the 1920s and 1930s', Journal of Design History, 19 (1), pp. 23-38.

Conference Papers

Hackney, F., Saunders, C., Willett, J., Hill, K., 2019. 'Designing a Sensibility for Sustainable Clothing (S4S): Affective Activism', Design Research for Change (DR4C) Symposium, London, 11/12/2019 - 12/12/2019, pp. 151-168.

Hackney, F., 2017. 'The making affect: A co-created community methodology', in Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, 66, pp. 913-925.

Light, A., Hansen, N.B., Halskov, K., Hill, K.J., Hackney, F., Dalsgaard, P., 2013. 'Exploring the dynamics of ownership in communityoriented design projects', in ACM International Conference Proceeding Series, pp. 90-99.

Office Location

Righton Building
Manchester Fashion Institute
Manchester Metropolitan University
Cavendish Street
Manchester M15 6BG