#MondayMaterials Episode 13 – Dr Patsy Perry

Meet the Department 23rd November 2015

I was only about a month into my role here when I first met Dr Patsy Perry at the Design, Fashion, and Business Degree show. She was introduced to me as someone I should definitely talk to about my plan’s for the School’s digital media, someone who would have a very useful insight, and someone who, on top of all that, was doing some fascinating work that I should look to cover on the blog that was then only just beginning to be planned.

Despite the fact that I was introduced to literally hundreds of people in those first couple of months, Patsy was one that stuck in my mind. With workloads and all that, though, it still took me a while to get back in touch. Recently, she contacted me to ask for some help with updating the Design, Fashion, and Business research pages on the School’s website. I happily obliged. And not only because I managed to collar her for an interview at the same time:

Hi Patsy, thanks for getting involved in the blog. We’ll start with the easy one. Can you please describe your research, for the layman, in ten sentences or less?

I have two main areas of research. The first area is looking at sustainability in fashion because fashion is one of the most inherently unsustainable sectors with lots of water used, lots of pollution, sweatshops in developing countries, and increasing amounts of fashion waste with the popularity of fast fashion. So I’m quite interested in how companies can still have a successful fashion business model but also incorporate sustainability into their activities.

And the second area of research that I’m getting involved in now is looking at how consumers interact with fashion online, with the big growth of fashion e-commerce. How they interact with clothing when it’s through a digital device, rather than being able to touch, feel, and try it on in the store.

And how could your research benefit the public?

Well in terms of fashion and sustainability there’s big benefit there. In terms of improving the lives of workers around the world that work in textiles and garments, improving the planet in terms of reducing the amount of waste, and reducing the pollution and water consumption within the sector.

And in terms of the fashion ecommerce research, well we could think about new ways for consumers to interact with products online. In terms of better visualisation, perhaps haptics to feel textures through a touchscreen device, and perhaps enabling different types of people to shop online. For example, for people who don’t have the sense of sight, perhaps the sense of touch could evolve to enable them to have some kind of digital experience online, too.

Sounds very exciting. Could you tell us how you first get interested in your research area?

In terms of fashion and sustainability I’ve always been quite interested in things like corporate social responsibility, ethics, and so on. And with my lifelong love of fashion I thought it would be a great focus to look at how sustainability and corporate responsibility works in the fashion industry.

So I started with my PhD a number of years ago and it’s evolved from there really.

And then more recently, with the fashion ecommerce, I’ve been working with some computer scientists and doing some interdisciplinary work. I think this is a great area again, with the link between fashion marketing and computer science today with fashion technology, digital innovation, and so on.

And what about a bit further back? Who or what first inspired your interests in fashion in general?

Well I’ve always loved dressing up, even from a young child really, and going shopping and experimenting with different looks and looking what other people are wearing. You know; style, beauty, and so on.

So it’s fantastic to be able to research and work in the area which you feel passionate about.

Can you tell us a bit about your other interests? What do you get up to in your spare time?

What spare time? I don’t have a lot of spare time! (Ed: As it doesn’t always come across when written down, I should probably point out that Patsy was laughing when she said this!)

But yeah, probably on a weekend I like to go and relax, do a bit of yoga, go out walking, or drink some wine.

Sounds like a good way to spend a weekend. Coming back to work for the last question, then, can you tell us how being here in Manchester helped with your work and research?

Immensely, I would say. It’s fantastic being a part of such a great institution with such a fantastic global reputation.

The opportunity to get involved in interdisciplinary work within the School of Materials is something quite unique. In a lot of universities fashion is situated within the business school or an art school but here we’re in the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences so that does give a lot of great opportunities.

Thanks so much, Patsy – what a great insight. Your research is very intriguing, so hopefully we can here more about it on the blog in the future. 

Well that’s it for Episode 13. Just one more episode now before we take a brief break for Christmas – who’s getting excited? See you all in two weeks. 

EcommerceFashionOnline retailSchool of MaterialsSustainabilityThe University of Manchester