Janie has 12 years’ experience in teaching at undergraduate and FE level, on a number of fashion curriculums. She is enjoying her current role as senior lecturer and pastoral year tutor for level 4 on the BA (Hons) Fashion Design course, where she is predominantly responsible for module leadership, and ensuring that the incoming student experience is stimulating, challenging, and enjoyable.

Prior to teaching, Janie has experience of working across the fashion, costume, tailoring, and set design sectors. She initially trained as a bespoke tailor, creating suits for clients such as Renee Zellweger and Will Smith, and as a design/production assistant whilst working for Ozwald Boateng (Savile Row) during an exciting time when he was awarded British Menswear Designer of the Year. Afterwards, Janie joined the pattern cutting and garment construction team for the Gold Label at Vivienne Westwood, working for several months in their London and Paris studio. She interned at Alexander McQueen in 2004, working in the London and Paris Atelier where she was responsible for 3D silhouette development and surface design, as well as pattern cutting, toiling, and show-piece construction. A highlight was seeing one of these show-pieces photographed by Tim Walker for Vogue UK.

Whilst residing in West Yorkshire, Janie has been commissioned to create garments, installations, and sets for clients and performances, as well as running various educational workshops. Freelance projects have included creating a large-scale inflatable flower installation for the site-specific performance ‘FUTURE’ (Arts Council), and working as costume designer on a series of collectively devised plays where abstract garments were designed ‘free-form’ in response to the emergence of each character during improvisatory rehearsals.

Janie has an honours degree in ‘Design for Performance’ from the University of Leeds, an MA in Fashion, a PGC in Innovative Pattern Cutting from Central St Martins, a PGCE in Art & Design, and HEA Fellowship status. Previous research interests have focused on viscerality and phenomenology in fashion and performance, however more recently Janie has presented research papers on fashion pedagogy at symposiums concerned with the importance of tacit knowledge in fashion education. She is currently working collaboratively on a proposed exhibition that seeks to address the enduring impact of the West Riding district on contemporary fashion.

Conference Proceedings

Tweddle, J. and Knight, N. (2019) Trusting Techne: an exploration into the creative value of learning through doing. In: Futurescan 4: Valuing Practice. FTC Fashion and Textile Courses.