I am currently Visiting Professor of Cultural Studies at the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts, London.

Adorned in Dreams argued from a feminist perspective for the cultural importance of dress and fashion at a time when feminists were suspicious of anything to do with adornment and beautification, in a reaction against the many oppressive aspects of the fashion industry and perhaps more especially the cosmetics and beauty industry and stereotypes of women in mass culture. It was one of very few cultural studies of fashion at the time, but since then there has grown up a flourishing tradition of research into dress culture.

At the moment I am working on the idea of 'Glamour' - what it is and how it differs from 'Celebrity'.

Fashion Related Publications
1985 Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity, London: Virago, and Berkeley: University of California Press; (Trans: German, Portuguese, Danish and Swedish).
2003 Second Edition with new material, London: I.B. Tauris and Rutgers University Press.
1989 with Lou Taylor, Through the Looking Glass, BBC Press (tie in with BBC series)
1992 co-editor with Juliet Ash Chic Thrills: A Fashion Reader, London: Pandora Press
1995 co-editor with Amy de la Haye Defining Dress, Manchester: Manchester University Press
2001 co-editor with Joanne Entwistle Body Dressing Oxford: Berg
2003 Adorned in Dreams 2nd edition, London: I.B. Tauris
2004 article, 'Magic Fashion', Fashion Theory, Fashion Dress and Consumption Special Issue, volume 8, issue 4, December, pp 375-386.
2006 'A Note on Glamour', Fashion Theory.