Staff Profile
Lecturer (Fashion Brand Design)
I am a lecturer in Fashion Communication Department. I am currently teaching on two programmes: Fashion Promotion and Fashion Art Direction.
Before joining MFI, I had my Ph.D. awarded by the College of Art, the University of Edinburgh in July 2020.
Academic and professional qualifications
- Ph.D. in Design (Design Culture Research). University of Edinburgh, College of Art 01/2015-09/2019
- Thesis: Re-shaping Innovations in the Contemporary Fashion Show: Emerging Chinese Designers in the Global Fashion Ecosystem
- Supervisors: Professor. Craig Martin, Professor Christopher Breward, Mr. Mal Burkinshaw
- Examiners: Dr. Wessie Ling, Dr. Rachel Joy Harkness
- University of Arts London, Curating Contemporary Art. Professional Training Course (25/03/2019-29/03/2019)
- MSc in Design and Digital Media, University of Edinburgh, UK, 09/2013-11/2014
- MSc Management, Wuhan University, China, 09/2011-06/2013
Undergraduate teaching
BA Fashion Promotion:
L4: Visual Communication 1; Showcase
L6: Visual Practice 1
BA Fashion Art Direction:
L4: Scoping; UnitX
L5: Anticipating
Postgraduate teaching
MA Fashion Buying and Merchandising Management
MA Fashion and Business
Postgraduate research supervision
- Mphil and Ph.D. Supervision Available
Exhibitions
- Curator, Nov. 2017-July 2018, International Touring Exhibition:‘Beauty by Design: Fashioning the Renaissance’at Shanghai Museum of Textile and Costume.
Editiorial Board membership
- Editorial Board for Fashion, Style and Popular Culture
Research
Research Interests
My research interests lie in a number of interdisciplinary fields, covering the ethnographies of global fashion cities, fashion communication and brand management (especially for emerging brands), fashion performance, fashion culture and history, design anthropology, innovation design, the global fashion ecosystem, creative labour, and creative cultural industry. My Ph.D. research focuses on how international-based Chinese designer brands survive and upgrade their international hierarchical cultural status by producing visual and aesthetic innovations through diversified implements of presenting fashion, interpreting their participatory behaviours during international fashion weeks in the context of today’s rapidly changing industry within the global fashion ecosystem. It is an interdisciplinary cultural research incorporating design arts and performance, fashion design and theatre, cultural production and creative labour, as well as design anthropology, and it is an international-based research project conducting cross-cultural comparisons between European countries and China.
Journal Articles
Wang, Z., 2022. 'Re-Shaping Innovations in the Contemporary Fashion Show: Emerging Aesthetics and the Rising International-Based Chinese Designer Collective', Design and Culture, 14 (3), pp. 315-340.
Wang, Z., 2022. 'Implementation of Chinese-styled branding in global fashion: ‘Guochao’ as a rising cultural identity', Fashion, Style & Popular Culture, 9 (1), pp. 149-183.
Wang, Z., 2018. 'Indie Fashion Culture: The Emerging Generation of ‘Independent’ Fashion Designers and A New Cultural Interpretation of Art Autonomy', Fashion Theory.
Wang, Z., 2023. 'Shanghai Fashion Week: A Socially Engaging Mass Entertainment', ZoneModa, pp. 283-307.
Conference Papers
Wang, Z., 2019. 'An anti-elitism ideology in the new generation of Chinese independent designers: the multi-dimensional design identities and their survival in today’s heteronomous fashion industry', The 4th International Congress on Visual Culture, Rome.
Wang, Z., 2018. 'Digitised Fashion Shows and Fashion Weeks in the COVID-19 and Post-COVID-19 Era: The Changing Formats and Meanings of Mediating Fashion', IFFTI 2022.
Presentations
Wang, Z., 2018. 'Shanghai Fashion Week: A Socially Engaging Mass Entertainment'.
Office Location
Room Cavendish Teaching 2, Room C.2.24
Righton Building
Manchester Fashion Institute
Manchester Metropolitan University
Cavendish Street
Manchester M15 6BG