Dr Elizabeth Kramer

Assistant Professor

School: Design Arts and Creative Industries

Dr Elizabeth Kramer is a Senior Lecturer in Design History, specialising in transnational fashion, textiles and material culture with a specialisation in fashion and textile exchanges between Japan and Britain.

Before joining Northumbria University in 2009 as Senior Lecturer in Design History, Elizabeth Kramer held a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship in Historical Studies at Newcastle University (2007-9), during which time she conducted research on the material culture of manias. This expanded upon her research on the Japan mania in Victorian Britain (1875-1900) conducted during a previous postdoctoral fellowship in Material Culture-Textiles for the AHRC Research Centre for Textile Conservation and Textile Studies (2005-7). Her interest in what we can learn about the participants in, and critics of, manias as informed by the material culture associated with them as well as her interest in Anglo-Japanese artistic exchange stemming from the topic of her PhD, "Art, Industry and Design: Japanese and Anglo-Japanese Textile Culture in Victorian Britain, 1862-1900", completed at The University of Manchester in 2004.

Dr Kramer is a longstanding member of the Design History Society. In 2019, she convened the Society’s annual conference on the topic of ‘The Cost of Design’, which considered the relationship between design and economy, at Northumbria University (https://costofdesign2019.com/). She is a member of the Editorial Board for Visual Culture in Britain, published by Routledge, and Committee Member for the Society for the Study of Japonisme. She is also a member of the AHRC Peer Review College.

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Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Currently Dr Kramer is researching how the materiality of garments can be used to understand cultural flows and transcultural identities, as demonstrated in her recent articles investigating the meanings of the global, mainstream fashions for the kimono jacket (Fashion Theory 2019) and souvenir jacket (International Journal of Fashion Studies 2020). She is also investigating how historians might use fashion garments in a decolonial approach to global/historical studies. Her contribution as Co-Investigator to the AHRC-funded network, ‘Fashion and Translation: Britain, Japan, China Korea’ (2014-15), led to her involvement as one of the lead authors on Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk (2020), which accompanied an exhibition by the same name at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/kimono-kyoto-to-catwalk), which was the first exhibition in Britain to present the historic and contemporary kimono as a fashionable rather than traditional garment. Dr Kramer has received funding from the AHRC, Pasold Foundation, British Academy, Design History Society and College Art Association to support her research activities.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
‘Band-Aid for a guilty conscience’?: Face Coverings, Fashionability and Responsibility during the Covid-19 Pandemic, Kramer, E. 1 Mar 2026, In: Fashion, Style and Popular Culture
Josephine Rout, Japanese Dress in Detail, Kramer, E. 23 Mar 2023, In: Costume
It’s all in the fold: an historical, transnational and material investigation to understand the 2010’s kimono jacket trend, Kramer, E. 16 Apr 2022, In: Fashion Theory - Journal of Dress Body and Culture
Kimonos à louer, tourisme et expression vestimentaire, Kramer, E., Palet, G. 4 Nov 2022, Kimono Catalogue de Exposition, Paris, Éditions de La Matinière
La “folie du kimono” de l’exotisme à la mode, Kramer, E., Savas, A., Palet, G. 4 Nov 2022, Kimono Catalogue de Exposition, Paris, Éditions de La Matinière
Représentations du kimono au Royaume Uni, en Europe et aux Etats Unis, Kramer, E., Palet, G. 4 Nov 2022, Kimono Catalogue de Exposition, Paris, Éditions de La Matinière
Une pièce maîtresse: la tendance de la veste kimono, Kramer, E., Palet, G. 4 Nov 2022, Kimono Catalogue de Exposition, Paris, Éditions de La Matinière
East Asia Global Connections and Fashion Histories, Cheang, S., Kramer, E. 12 Aug 2021, Rethinking Fashion Globalization, London, Bloomsbury
Kimono Rental, Tourism and Sartorial Expression, Kramer, E. Feb 2020, Kimono: From Kyoto to Catwalk, London, Victoria and Albert Museum
New Vintage – New History? The Sukajan (Souvenir Jacket) and Its Fashionable Reproduction, Kramer, E. 1 Apr 2020, In: International Journal of Fashion Studies

Professional Activity

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Participating in a conference, workshop, ...: Border Control 2024
Participating in a conference, workshop, ...: Memory Studies Association (MSA) 7th annual conference 2023
Invited talk: ‘The sukajan (embroidered jacket): Exploring the fashionable appeal of embroidered garments born out of military conflict’, presented at the Ornamental Embroidery lecture series 4. 2023
Participating in a conference, workshop, ...: Association of Asian Studies Annual Conference 2022
Invited talk: The Global Connections of Japanese Embroidered Garments: Coats and Sukajan (presented at Fashion Globalisation and Japan conference, National Art Centre Tokyo). 2021
Participating in a conference, workshop, ...: Locking down the Fashion Sector? 2021
Invited talk: Invited panellist, Kimono in Conversation Panel, Kimono Magic Society: Kimono Bash, Royal College of Art, London. 2020
Invited talk: Invited keynote speaker: Presented “A Paradise of Pretty Girls: The Kimono and Perceptions of Japan in late 19th and early 20th century Britain”, at the Russell-Cotes Museum Lecture Series, Bournemouth. 2020
Organising a conference, workshop, ...: The Cost of Design 2019
Participating in a conference, workshop, ...: ReThinking Fashion Globalization 2019

PGR Supervision

Caroline Gill Christopher Dresser (1834-1904) and Meiji Japan: A Transcultural Approach to Perceived Nationalized Aesthetics in Material Culture Start Date: 01/10/2021 End Date: 17/10/2025
Caroline Gill Christopher Dresser (1834-1904) and Meiji Japan: A Transcultural Approach to Perceived Nationalized Aesthetics in Material Culture Start Date: 01/10/2021
Grace Jackson Getting Unstuck: Telling stories about wool communities to find accessible strategies for post-growth fashion. Start Date: 01/10/2024 End Date: 17/10/2025
Grace Jackson ‘It’s more than two needles and a string, it’s sort of a lot more than that’: Unearthing new narratives of handmade fashion using a curatorial methodology. Start Date: 01/10/2024