Professor Robyn Healy

Appointed Head of School for the School of Fashion and Textiles in late 2014, Professor Robyn Healy will be leading the School through a critical period of change and expansion.

Prior to this appointment, Robyn held the role of acting Head of School for almost 12 months. She was also previously Program Director of the Bachelor of Design (Fashion) in the School of Architecture and Design from 2009-2012, and HDR Director in the School of Architecture and Design from 2011-2012.

Robyn has steered the development of the fashion research cohort, and reviewed and restructured the fashion program to facilitate vertically integrated studios, cross-disciplinary studios, and increased industry engagement, particularly with the professional practice stream.

Research

Robyn's research is focused on the areas of:

• fashion design
• curatorial practice
• museums
• material culture
• practice-led research
• phenomenology of wear

Her PhD entitled Striptease was an enquiry about new possibilities for exhibiting fashion in museums, which involved an understanding of the experience of wear.

Robyn is a registered Category 1 research supervisor.

Current research supervision

• Cecilia Heffer (PhD by project) Lace-?scapes: an exploration of the sensorial
• Adele Varcoe (PhD by project) Fashioning Situations: affecting fashion and everyday life
• Winnie Ha (PhD by project) Textual Dress: Fashioning Meaning
• Elizabeth Anya-Petrivna (PhD by project) The Artificial Flower in the Age of Improvement
• Tarryn Handcock (PhD by project) Nostalgic Skin: Between body and wearable
• Jo Cramer (PhD by project ) The Living wardrobe: relationships between consumers and their clothing from the perspective of a fashion designer
• Cristina Cie (PhD by project) More than pretty: The object and the user in creation of meaning
• Liliana Pomazan (PhD by thesis) Beril Jents: An Australian Design Practice of the post WWII era
• Armando Chant (PhD by project) Wonder: emotional connections in Fashion
• Donna Sgro (PhD by project) Biomimetic Transformation: Developing slow fashion practice through the study of metamorphosis. (2nd supervisor)
• Mick Peel (PhD by project) The Bicycle and the jacket: making design (2nd supervisor)
• Fleur Watson (PhD by project) The Specialized Curatorial Practice of Exhibiting Architecture (2nd supervisor)
• Advisor for Merryn Gates (PhD) Australian National University

Research supervision completions

• 2013 Pia Interlandi (PhD by project) Fashioning Death: Garments for the Grave (2nd supervisor)
• 2012 Ricarda Bigolin Undo Fashion: Loose Garment practice (PhD by project)
• 2012 Paola Di Trocchio Curating the toile, a study of curatorial practice in the fine art museum (Masters by thesis)
• 2010 Winnie Ha Palpitating Body, Sounding Dress: A Poetics of Relation (Masters by project)
• 2010 Adele Varcoe The Skin project: the Merging of Cloth and the Body (Masters by project) (2nd supervisor)

Accomplishments/achievements/awards

• Centenary medal from the Australian Federal Government for contribution to Australian Society in the field offashion.
• Gordon Darling Foundation Travel Scholarship

• PhD (RMIT)
• B Arts (ANU)

Robyn is an independent curator and fashion commentator.

She has worked with Australian public collections of fashion and textiles for over 20 years.

From 1990 to 2004, Robyn was the Senior Curator of Fashion and Textiles at the National Gallery of Victoria. Previously she worked at the National Gallery of Australia, where she was the inaugural curator of International Fashion from 1982 to 1989 and the Senior Curator of International Decorative Arts from 1990.

Professional interests

2013

• Current chair of IFFTI ( International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes) research sub-committee

2012

• Current member of the Executive committee IFFTI
• Peer reviewer ERA
• TEQSA interim accreditation panel

2011

• VRQA advisory committee member for reviews ? Holmes Institute Bachelor of Fashion and Business
• Academy of Design Australia re-accreditation of courses in fashion to degree level
• Academic Review panel for Curtin University Bachelor of Arts (Humanities) Fashion, Textile & Industrial Design courses

2010

• Honorary Life member, Craft Victoria

2007?2010

• Elected Director of Craft Victoria Board and Chair of the South project

2004?current

• Member Costume collection committee, National Trust of Australia (Victoria)