Sarah Walton

Assistant Professor

School: Design Arts and Creative Industries

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Sarah Walton is a design and maker. She worked in the fashion industry as a designer and product developer for independent brands and high street suppliers of denim and woven garments, – producing technical specification drawing, pattern cutting, print and fashion graphics.

Since 2012 Sarah has been lecturing in Higher Education, specialising in Fashion Design and Enterprise. Sarah joined Northumbria in 2017 and is currently Programme Leader for BA (Hons) Fashion Design and Marketing. With industry experience, Sarah’s research focuses on Practice-led studies. Sarah is interested in designers understanding of their craft practice and how this informs the trajectory of combined manual and digital processes and tools in the future of fashion design and manufacturing.
Cutters Context; a Practice Led Combined Approach to Manual and Digital Pattern Cutting Principles to Inform New Design Tools and Processes

Timeframe: 2018-2023

In the context of fashion; if the puzzle is a design and the solution is a garment, there is often more than one person trying to solve it. Whether approaching the puzzle as a team or individually the journey to the solution will vary and more than likely include conflict over what is deemed ‘best practice.’

A series of studies will focus on understanding peoples narrative accounts of practice within the field of pattern cutting for fashion design. A devised methodology informed by pragmatism and phenomenological analysis (Smith and Osborn, 2009) will focus on understanding individual practitioner experience. By using idiographic methods informed by pragmatic epistemology (Murphy, 2017) the data focus’ on the designer and their process and not their designs.

This data analysis is the foundation for design practice and creative exploration into a combined approach to manual and digital pattern cutting principles. To inform the design of new pattern cutting design tools and processes.

Further Information

Research interests

Sarah Walton is a design and maker. She worked in the fashion industry as a designer and product developer for independent brands and high street suppliers of denim and woven garments, – producing technical specification drawing, pattern cutting, print and fashion graphics.

Since 2012 Sarah has been lecturing in Higher Education, specialising in Fashion Design and Enterprise. Sarah joined Northumbria in 2017 and is currently Programme Leader for BA (Hons) Fashion Design and Marketing. With industry experience, Sarah’s research focuses on Practice-led studies. Sarah is interested in designers understanding of their craft practice and how this informs the trajectory of combined manual and digital processes and tools in the future of fashion design and manufacturing.

Qualifications