About me
Dr Christine Shaw-Checinska
designer writer curator
Christine’s work is situated at the meeting point between material culture and contemporary art. She writes about the relationship between cloth, culture and race. The cultural exchanges that occur as a result of movement and migration, creating creolised cultural forms, are her recurring themes. The correlation between personal history and received history is an ongoing interest.
Christine studied Fashion/Textile Design at the University of the West of England, graduating with a BA (Hons) in 1986, and Fashion at the University for the Creative Arts, earning an MA in 2002. Her PhD, Colonizin’ in Reverse: the Creolised Aesthetic of the Windrush Generation, was awarded by Goldsmiths, (Centre for Cultural Studies), London, in 2009. During 2013- 2015 she was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of East London. Between 2014-2015 she was the Stuart Hall Library Animateur at Iniva, London. She is currently an Associate Researcher at VIAD, University of Johannesburg and an Associate Lecturer in fashion at Goldsmiths, London.
Her recent publications include Social Fabric in The Handbook of Textile Culture Janis Jefferies, Hazel Clark and Diana Wood Conroy (eds.) Bloomsbury Publications, 2015; Crafting Difference: Art, Cloth and the African Diasporas in Cultural Threads: Transnational Textiles Today Jessica Hemmings (ed) Bloomsbury Publications, 2015, Second Skins: Cloth, Difference and the Art of Transformation in Image and Text, Leora Farber and Anne-Marie Tully (eds.), University of Johannesburg, 2014, and Reconfiguring Diasporic Identities in Beyond Borders, John Hutnyk (ed.), Pavement Books, 2012.
As a creative designer, Christine has created womenswear collections for a number of iconic British brands including Margaret Howell. She is currently Head of Design at Navabi. Her natural design flair and creative energy has seen her anticipating new trends, styling press launches, fashion shows and shoots, alongside mentoring emerging fashion practitioners.
Projects
Work history
Head OF Design
- Creating the inspiration, story and aspiration behind the first ever Navabi ‘own label’ collection
- Defining the aesthetic, designing each co-ordinating piece, sourcing all fabrics, sourcing and working in collaboration with key Italian factories to make the collection a reality
- Working in partnership with the content and graphics teams, liaising with internal PR and marketing to share the brand message
- Presenting the collection to key international bloggers through blogger events and social media
- Attending shoots, writing copy for look books, inputting into the visual communication of the brand
- Mentoring junior designers, both one-to-one and through 'design hub' open forums
Skills
- Fashion
- Visual Arts
- Art Direction
- Design
- Design Room Coordination
- Fabric
- Product Development
- Styling
- Powerpoint
- Word
- Pubic Speaking
- Critical Creative Thinking
Education
Cultural Studies
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PhD Cultural Studies
Fashion
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MA in Fashion and Communication
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