Dr Sarah Gilligan

Dr Sarah Gilligan is an Assistant Professor (Senior Lecturer) in Fashion Communication in the School of Design. Her research and publications centre on clothing and identities on and beyond the screen - particularly the distinct, yet symbiotic relationships between costuming, fashion and star-celebrity culture in film, TV drama and photography. 

Sarah has published peer reviewed articles in Fashion Theory, Film, Fashion and Consumption, Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty, Journal of Bodies, Sexualities and Masculinities, and the Journal of Asia Pacific Popular Culture, together with contributions to a range of edited collections.  Recent articles include:

• Fashioning masculinities: critical reflections on curation and future directions in masculinity studies.

• Growing old (dis)gracefully: Spanish masculinities and star-celebrity culture.

• Fashion forward killer: Villanelle, costuming and queer style in Killing Eve.  

Sarah has also guest edited special issues of Clothing Cultures (6.1), Queer Studies in Media and Popular Culture (5.2-3), and Critical Studies in Men's Fashion (7.1-2). 

Sarah’s current sole authored research on fashioning ageing star-celebrities focuses on Keanu Reeves, and Tilda Swinton. She has recently presented aspects of this research at the Fashioning Masculinities symposium (V&A, London), Ad-Dressing the Margins (Drexel University), the European Popular Culture Association Conference (Stirling), and at Back to School: A Fashion Symposium at New York University. She is currently preparing journal articles tied to this research for submission to Critical Studies in Men's Fashion, and Journal of Asia-Pacific Pop Culture. Sarah is also preparing sole and co-authored papers: 'Suiting John Wick', and 'Owning the Space like a Boss' to be presented at Critical Costume at UCLA in March 2024 (subject to securing funding).

Building on her existing research, Sarah is in the early stages of planning her large-scale interdisciplinary project: Costuming Identities: Images, Objects and Experiences in Contemporary Visual Cultures. This international project will include sole authored and collaborative research, publications and symposia. This project examining fashion, screen costuming, and everyday dress, will form the central focus of Sarah's research trajectory between 2024-2027. It adopts a multi-modal approach combining textual analysis, object-based research and creative explorations.

Sarah is the co-founder (with Dr Petra Krpan, Zagreb) and chair of the Fashion, Costume and Visual Cultures (FCVC) Network for which she received a British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award. She has co-organised international conferences in Croatia (FCVC2018) and France (FCVC2019) together with in-person and online events, and mentoring for researchers in the UK and internationally. Sarah is Reviews Editor for Film, Fashion and Consumption journal and is a member of the editorial boards of Fashion, Style and Popular Culture, Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty, and the International Journal of Sustainable Fashion and Textiles.  She is a member of the Critical Costume steering group and the European Popular Culture Association.

Sarah joined Northumbria University as a Senior Lecturer in 2020, following a career in further and adult education. Sarah remains highly committed to widening participation in education, and currently teaches and supervises student projects across BA, MA, MRes and PhD levels. She also mentors staff at and beyond Northumbria who are at different stages of their research and teaching careers. In 2021, Sarah became a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), and she holds BA and MA qualifications in Media, Film and Cultural Studies, a Cert.Ed, together with a PhD in Media Arts from Royal Holloway, University of London. Sarah's thesis Transforming Identity: Gender, Costume & Contemporary Popular Cinema (supervised by Prof. Stella Bruzzi), was funded by a Thomas Holloway scholarship, and passed with no corrections.