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Sara Chong Kwan

University of the Arts London, Cultural and Historical Studies, PhD Candidate

London College of Fashion, Cultural and Historical Studies, Associate Lecturer

Sensory Studies Research Directory, Sensory Studies, Member

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Multi-sensory perception is fundamental to the wearer’s everyday experience of dress. My PhD research is based on an analysis of new data on sensory interaction with clothing in a contemporary UK context and integrates this into existing understandings of the complex role dress plays in social life. Drawing on sociology, anthropology, phenomenology, sensory studies, material culture and embodied approaches within fashion theory my research begins to address a ‘sensory’ gap in fashion studies.
Supervisors: Professor Amy de la Haye and Professor Helen Thomas
Phone: 07932 678 132

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Papers by Sara Chong Kwan

The Ambient Gaze: Sensory Atmosphere and the Dressed Body

Revisiting the Gaze

Drawing on Jules Prown's material culture method of object analysis to investigate sensory engagement with everyday dress

This is a contribution to a collection of Working Papers in Fashion Studies, produced by London C... more

Fashion and memory

Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty, 2014

MakingSense of Everyday Dress: Integrating multisensory experience within ourunderstanding of contemporary dress in the UK

Multisensory perception is fundamental to the wearer’s experience of everyday dress, yet this rem... more Multisensory perception is fundamental to the wearer’s experience of everyday dress, yet this remains an under-researched area within fashion and dress studies.Dress is predominantly described in visual terms, while much less attention has been paid to other relevant sensory aspects such as; touch, sound,smell - and to a lesser degree taste - and to the ways in which these interact.Similarly, within the now established field of sensory scholarship, little attention has been paid to the topic of dress. One of the contributions of this thesis is to address the above gaps in relation to both male and female contemporary UK dress(and more generally, dress within a Western context). It also attends to the wider academic neglect of male dressed experience. This thesis draws upon sensory scholarship to bring a fresh perspective to current embodied understandings of everyday dress, thereby contributing to the field of dress studies by explicitly focussing on the sensory nature of dress. Thi...

Fashion and The Senses

Co-chaired by Bethan Alexander and Sara Chong Kwan. Drawing on fashion and dress in its broadest ... more

Fashion and Memory

by Mario J . Roman, Morna Laing, and Sara Chong Kwan

Chong Kwan, S. (2012) ‘Drawing on Jules Prown’s material culture method of object analysis to investigate sensory engagement with everyday dress’ in Lifter, R. ed. Working Papers in Fashion Studies 2. London: London College of Fashion.

Journal Special Editions by Sara Chong Kwan

Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty 5/2.

by Sara Chong Kwan, Morna Laing, and Mario J . Roman

Co-edited Journal Special Edition on the theme of Fashion and Memory emanating from the 'Fashion ... more

Conferences Co-organised by Sara Chong Kwan

Fashion & the Senses Symposium 2015

The Fashion & the Senses Symposium held at LCF on 27th March 2015 was an international multi-disc... more The Fashion & the Senses Symposium held at LCF on 27th March 2015 was an international multi-disciplinary forum for industry professionals, practitioners, academics and postgraduate students with a shared interest in this emerging field - fashion and the senses. It was co-organised by Sara Chong Kwan, Associate Lecturer in Cultural and Historical studies at LCF and a final year PhD candidate, and Bethan Alexander, Course Director of the MA in Fashion Retail Management at LCF.

Fashion and Re-collection Symposium 2013

by Sara Chong Kwan, Mario J . Roman, and Morna Laing

On 29 January 2013, the Fashion and Re-Collection postgraduate symposium was held at London Colle... more On 29 January 2013, the Fashion and Re-Collection postgraduate symposium was held at London College of Fashion, co-organised by Sara Chong Kwam, Morna Laing and Mario Roman. The symposium brought together a group of postgraduate scholars, with different approaches and vocabularies, to reflect on fashion through the lens of memory. Although presenters span a range of disciplinary backgrounds, running through the day was an emphasis on what can be remembered, or remembered differently, through fashion – in both academic and curatorial contexts. But alongside this, it is also worth thinking about what fashion wants to forget: whether it be side-lined histories and subjectivities, the conditions of production, landfill, or last season. Put differently, what does fashion – as object, image and text - seek to include and exclude? And what methodologies are appropriate for uncovering, or rather re-constructing, those memories? Keynote speakers were Professor Caroline Evans and Dr Linda Sandino.

Selected Conference Presentations by Sara Chong Kwan

Forthcoming… ‘Dress as a moveable sensory space for the body’. Atmospheres, University of Manchester, July 2015.

‘Sensory Case Study’. Haptics Panel Discussion at the Study Day: Documenting Fashion: Re-thinking the experience and Representation of dress. Research Forum, Courtauld Insititute of Art, May 2014.

‘Making sense of everyday dress’. The Lives of Objects. Wolfson College, University of Oxford, Sept 2013.

Other activity by Sara Chong Kwan

Whitefields Project

I am involved with the current Whitefields project, part of the ‘Better Lives’ work at London Col... more I am involved with the current Whitefields project, part of the ‘Better Lives’ work at London College of Fashion, 2015. Whitefields is a school for Autistic and sensory impaired children. The MA Fashion Futures Students are currently working with the school students to develop a uniform.
http://www.arts.ac.uk/fashion/about/better-lives/

The Ambient Gaze: Sensory Atmosphere and the Dressed Body

Revisiting the Gaze

Drawing on Jules Prown's material culture method of object analysis to investigate sensory engagement with everyday dress

This is a contribution to a collection of Working Papers in Fashion Studies, produced by London C... more

Fashion and memory

Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty, 2014

MakingSense of Everyday Dress: Integrating multisensory experience within ourunderstanding of contemporary dress in the UK

Multisensory perception is fundamental to the wearer’s experience of everyday dress, yet this rem... more Multisensory perception is fundamental to the wearer’s experience of everyday dress, yet this remains an under-researched area within fashion and dress studies.Dress is predominantly described in visual terms, while much less attention has been paid to other relevant sensory aspects such as; touch, sound,smell - and to a lesser degree taste - and to the ways in which these interact.Similarly, within the now established field of sensory scholarship, little attention has been paid to the topic of dress. One of the contributions of this thesis is to address the above gaps in relation to both male and female contemporary UK dress(and more generally, dress within a Western context). It also attends to the wider academic neglect of male dressed experience. This thesis draws upon sensory scholarship to bring a fresh perspective to current embodied understandings of everyday dress, thereby contributing to the field of dress studies by explicitly focussing on the sensory nature of dress. Thi...

Fashion and The Senses

Co-chaired by Bethan Alexander and Sara Chong Kwan. Drawing on fashion and dress in its broadest ... more

Fashion and Memory

by Mario J . Roman, Morna Laing, and Sara Chong Kwan

Chong Kwan, S. (2012) ‘Drawing on Jules Prown’s material culture method of object analysis to investigate sensory engagement with everyday dress’ in Lifter, R. ed. Working Papers in Fashion Studies 2. London: London College of Fashion.

Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty 5/2.

by Sara Chong Kwan, Morna Laing, and Mario J . Roman

Co-edited Journal Special Edition on the theme of Fashion and Memory emanating from the 'Fashion ... more

Fashion & the Senses Symposium 2015

The Fashion & the Senses Symposium held at LCF on 27th March 2015 was an international multi-disc... more The Fashion & the Senses Symposium held at LCF on 27th March 2015 was an international multi-disciplinary forum for industry professionals, practitioners, academics and postgraduate students with a shared interest in this emerging field - fashion and the senses. It was co-organised by Sara Chong Kwan, Associate Lecturer in Cultural and Historical studies at LCF and a final year PhD candidate, and Bethan Alexander, Course Director of the MA in Fashion Retail Management at LCF.

Fashion and Re-collection Symposium 2013

by Sara Chong Kwan, Mario J . Roman, and Morna Laing

On 29 January 2013, the Fashion and Re-Collection postgraduate symposium was held at London Colle... more On 29 January 2013, the Fashion and Re-Collection postgraduate symposium was held at London College of Fashion, co-organised by Sara Chong Kwam, Morna Laing and Mario Roman. The symposium brought together a group of postgraduate scholars, with different approaches and vocabularies, to reflect on fashion through the lens of memory. Although presenters span a range of disciplinary backgrounds, running through the day was an emphasis on what can be remembered, or remembered differently, through fashion – in both academic and curatorial contexts. But alongside this, it is also worth thinking about what fashion wants to forget: whether it be side-lined histories and subjectivities, the conditions of production, landfill, or last season. Put differently, what does fashion – as object, image and text - seek to include and exclude? And what methodologies are appropriate for uncovering, or rather re-constructing, those memories? Keynote speakers were Professor Caroline Evans and Dr Linda Sandino.

Forthcoming… ‘Dress as a moveable sensory space for the body’. Atmospheres, University of Manchester, July 2015.

‘Sensory Case Study’. Haptics Panel Discussion at the Study Day: Documenting Fashion: Re-thinking the experience and Representation of dress. Research Forum, Courtauld Insititute of Art, May 2014.

‘Making sense of everyday dress’. The Lives of Objects. Wolfson College, University of Oxford, Sept 2013.

Whitefields Project

I am involved with the current Whitefields project, part of the ‘Better Lives’ work at London Col... more I am involved with the current Whitefields project, part of the ‘Better Lives’ work at London College of Fashion, 2015. Whitefields is a school for Autistic and sensory impaired children. The MA Fashion Futures Students are currently working with the school students to develop a uniform.
http://www.arts.ac.uk/fashion/about/better-lives/