Professor Robyn Healy
Associate Deputy Vice Chancellor Learning and Teaching (DSC)
Details
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College: Design and Social Context
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Department: Design and Social Context
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Campus: City Campus Australia
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robyn.healy@rmit.edu.au
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ORCID: 0000-0002-6452-102X
Open to
- Masters Research or PhD student supervision
About
Acclaimed curator and fashion researcher Professor Robyn Healy is Head of RMIT's School of Fashion and Textiles.
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.
Accomplishments/achievements/awards-
Centenary medal from the Australian Federal Government for contribution to Australian Society in the field offashion.
Gordon Darling Foundation Travel Scholarship
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.
Accomplishments/achievements/awards-
Centenary medal from the Australian Federal Government for contribution to Australian Society in the field offashion.
Gordon Darling Foundation Travel Scholarship
Supervisor projects
- Deathless Dress; An investigation of Fashion Curation in the digital age
- 20 Jun 2023
- Sustainable methods of fashion production: Developing textile manufacturing practices for the holistic application of colour to fabrics
- 8 Feb 2023
- Repeat, Replay: Replicating methods from the past to inform contemporary fashion and costume practices
- 10 Jan 2023
- RE-kin-DLE positioning reuse at the centre of fashion practice through the testing of scalable methods of redesign and remanufacture
- 6 Jan 2022
- Fashion Scavenging: Resurrecting wasted fashion through luxury garment practice
- 2 Jul 2019
- Invitation to the Party: Lively Exhibition-Making for Unruly Fashion Practice
- 7 Feb 2019
- Memories through Miniature Garments Re-enlivening Historical Australian Fashion Practice
- 1 Oct 2018
- Designing Emotional Technologies: Collaborating Across Design, Health and Engineering to Humanise Wearable Health Technologies
- 1 Sep 2014
- Reimagining Lace: Investigating the Dynamics of Space as an Ephemeral Marking of (P)lace
- 4 Mar 2013
- How Can Digital Print Technology Prompt An Analysis Of Pattern As A Phenomenon, With Application To Examples In Textile Design?
- 27 Feb 2012
- Dynamic Cutting: How Tacit Knowledge of Material Creativity and Spatial Creativity can be Activated using Metaphor in Fashion Design Practice
- 19 Jul 2010
Teaching interests
Fashion design, Fashion theory and history, exhibition and curatorial practices, museology, design practice research and cross-disciplinary research.
Research interests
Design Practice and Management, Visual Arts and Crafts
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)
Industry Experience:
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)
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)
Industry Experience:
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)
