V&A RCA History of Design MA

Back in the 'Dam! V&A/RCA History of Design MA students had their annual study trip just before Easter, and this year we returned to Amsterdam. Our packed schedule over 52 hours took in the Rijksmuseum, a social evening with MA Design Cultures students at Vrije University, Our Lord in the Attic hidden Catholic chapel, the preserved Willet-Holthuysen canal house, the Wereldmuseum, AND Het Schip social housing museum. We also ate many bitterballen. More pics to come 📸

V&A/RCA History of Design, London College of Fashion, and Parsons Paris students are running their conference Dressing (A)part, seeking to explore the relationship between everyday fashion and power.

The conference is the third annual event and the first to take place in Paris. Congratulations to all involved!

📆 The next V&A\RCA Alumni in Conversation will be on Tuesday 10th March at 18:00-19:30, via Zoom. We will be having a chat with two powerhouse fashion curators, Alistair O'Neill (MA 1996) and Connie Karol Burks (MA 2016).

💻 Sign up: hodalumni3.eventbrite.co.uk
Ticket holders will be sent the Zoom link

📝 Alistair O’Neill is a writer, curator and professor of fashion at Central Saint Martins (University of the Arts London). He is the author of Faye Toogood: Drawing, Material, Sculpture, Landscape (Phaidon, 2022), Exploding Fashion: 2D-3D-3D Animation (MoMu/Lannoo 2021), and London: after a fashion (Reaktion Books, 2007); and recently curated A Hard Man is Good to Find! (The Photographers’ Gallery, London, 2023). Alistair sits on the editorial board of Fashion Theory, writes regularly for Aperture magazine, and is currently completing catalogue essays for the National Portrait Gallery and Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge.

Connie Karol Burks is curator of Textiles and Fashion Since 1900 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. During her eight years at the V&A Museum, Connie has co-curated two major sell-out exhibitions, Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams in 2019 and Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto in 2023 and contributed to V&A exhibitions Fashioned from Nature, Africa Fashion and Plastics: Remaking Our World. Before entering the museum sector, Connie studied at Central Saint Martins (University of the Arts London) and had a practical background in textile weaving as co-founder of the London Cloth Company.

V&A/RCA History of Design MA tutor Spike Sweeting is part of the team organising the Marie Antoinette Style conference in Feb, that expands on themes from the hugely successful exhibition at the V&A.

History of Design students worked with the curators and objects from the exhibition while it was in preparation as part of their Fashion and Celebrity option course back in 2022/3. They also snuck off to Versailles in October 2023 - here are some photos from the trip!

The amazing line up of speakers for the conference reflects the richness of the material. Event dates are 12-13 February 2026.

Booking information and the full programme for the conference can be found by searching 'V&A Marie Antoinette Style conference'.

Call for Papers: Dressing (A)part Symposium

Submission Deadline: 30th Jan 2026
Event Date: 20th March 2026
Email: [email protected]

The Dressing (A)part symposium seeks to explore the relationship between everyday fashion and power. It aims to interrogate authoritative structures as shaping expressions of identity and influencing participation in subcultures. “Dressing apart” calls to mind the ways that hegemonic structures divide, and relationships unite, groups of people through dress. “Dressing a part” considers individual agency in the participation or resistance against these structured systems of power.

Submission formats:

•Research Paper (250-word abstract, 15-minute presentation)
•Short Films (max. 15 minutes, 10-minute presentation)
•Zine (max. 20 pages, 10-minute presentation)

Dressing (A)part will take place on 20th March 2026 at Parsons Paris, 45 Rue St Roch, Paris 75001, with online participation via Zoom. 

The symposium is organised by Masters students from The New School, Parsons Paris, the Royal College of Art, and the London College of Fashion.

Next week the Barbican hosts a panel discussion which includes our recent graduate Eilidh Duffy, formally a senior writer at i-D. Eilidh writes about fashion and its relationship to social and political upheaval, and is editor of the blog 'Bog'. 

The panel will expand on the ideas behind the current major fashion exhibition Dirty Looks: Desire and Decay in Fashion, which explore fashion's enduring fascination with the worn, decaying and ruined.

Congratulations to our graduating 2025 cohort! We hope you had a wonderful Convocation at the Royal Festival Hall, celebrating with friends, family and each other. Keep in touch!

Students selected for a summer placement, working behind the scenes at 📦🧤 one of the many professional development opportunities that V&A/RCA History of Design students can secure during their MA — from curatorial projects to collections and research.

🌊✨ The V&A/RCA History of Design MA 2024–2025 cohort is delighted to invite you to Confluence, our graduating symposium and publication launch!

🗓️ Monday 14 July – 18:00 – 21:00 BTS
📍 V&A South Kensington, The Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre 

🔗 Link in bio for full programme & RSVP

From early modern objects to contemporary spaces, Confluence brings together global research that spans centuries, geographies, and disciplines — all converging under the ever-evolving field of design history.

Come celebrate a year of thinking, making, and questioning. We can't wait to share it with you.

Our student blot post series continues with Katy Easthill's piece charting the rise of illustrated news via one particularly gripping topic - fire.

Click the link in our bio for this and other blog posts.

This time last week our MA students were arriving in Edinburgh as part of a Study Trip to Scotland. Here are some snippets from a visit to The National Museum of Scotland with an introductory tour by museum head Chris Breward (alumnus of our programme).

Pics 4 - 8 are from the Cold War Scotland exhibition.

4. Mimic panel from nuclear reactor, 1956

5. Protect & Survive printed material from the UK Home Office (1976) and satirical Protest ♤ Survive postcards by Peter Kennard for CND.

6. Steel bunker door from East Kilbride, 1952 (not thick enough to protect from a blast - a case of managing public panic rather than actual protection).

7. Selection of protest button badges, including Cats Against the Bomb.

8. Home made 'battle rattle' of dried peas in a fabric softener bottle, 1982 - a disobedient object used in protests msde from cheap and accessible materials.

Pic 9 is part of a circuit used to create very high voltages in 'smash the atom' particle accelerators, as used in Edinburgh in 1932.

Pic 10 is a giant deer skeleton from the Isle of Man, 12,300 years old.

Thank you to Chris, the curators of Cold War Scotland, and everyone who made this such a fascinating afternoon. More Scotland content to come!

V&A/RCA History of Design alumni (MA and PhD) Dorothy Armstrong was in conversation at the V&A last night with our RCA Head of Programme, Sarah Cheang, to launch her new book Threads of Empire: a History of the World in Twelve Carpets.

Object-led research opens up fascinating stories that change how we see the history of the world. Dorothy's book is available to right now! Congratulations 🎉