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Summary

I am Professor Emerita of Design History in the School of Art, Design and Performance.

My current research focuses on houses, interiors and domestic design, I also have another strand of research on twentieth century historical pageants. An experienced broadcaster for television and radio, I was series consultant and a presenter for the BBC Two television series A House Through Time.

Biography

Having retired from the University in September 2024, I am now Professor Emerita of Design History in the School of Art, Design and Performance in the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries. From September 2016 to January 2023, I was Associate Dean (Research) for the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries  providing strategic leadership for our REF 2021 submissons.

I began my career as a curator at the V&A Museum, London. This was followed by my PhD The Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition and Suburban Modernity, 1908-51 (Department of Cultural Studies, University of East London, 1995), for which I curated Ideal Homes for the Design Museum in 1993. I was a Leverhulme Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Geography, Royal Holloway University of London, on the project Imperial Cities: Landscape, Space and Performance in London and Rome, 1850-1950. 

I have held lecturing posts at the Univerity of Wolverhampton, University of East London, Open University, University of Ulster and Loughorough University. I was Senior Lecturer and then Associate Professor of Design History and Theory at Falmouth University from 2007-16. 

I am an experienced television and radio presenter, contributor, consultant and public speaker. As a presenter and consultant historian to series 1-5 of BBC Two's A House Through Time (Twenty Twenty Televsion), I advised and presented segments on the history of the domestic interior and material culture. I wrote and presented the 5-part series Trading Spaces (2021) Drawing on my current research on the history of the kitchen, I appeared in and was consultant to Channel 5’s My Kitchen: 60 Years of Fads and Gadgets and co-wrote and co-presented the BBC Radio 4 programme Fitted and Kitted in 2024, and have contributed to many other TV and radio programmes. 

Research interests

I am currently researching the past, present and future of the kitchen, which will result in a monograph contracted to Reaktion Books. I was a member of the Editorial Board of the Adam Matthew Digital database Trade Catalogues and the American Home. for which I wrote an essay 'The American kitchen, 1850-1950: From workroom to heart of the home'. I wrote 'From the "smart" kitchen to "kitchenism' for the catalogue to the V&A Museum's 2019 exhibition Food: Bigger Than the Plate for which I was also a member of the Advisory Board.

My current research builds on my previous work on the material culture and design of the home and domestic space, focused on the interwar home and the Ideal Home Show. My monograph Ideal Homes, 1918-39: Domestic Design and Suburban Modernism (Manchester University Press, 2018) was awarded the 2020 Historians of British Art Book Prize for Exemplary Scholarship in the Period after 1800 and was also shorlisted for the 2019 Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion. It was republished in a new trade edition in 2020 as Ideal Homes: Understanding the Design and History of the Interwar House with a new introduction on researching house history.

I have published several articles on the invention of historical pageants and spectacle in Britain, the US and the British Empire in the twentieth century, mainly focusing on the work of pageant master Frank Lascelles. I was a member of the Advisory Board to AHRC The Redress of the Past: Historical Pageants in Britain, 1905-2016 and have contributed to an English Heritage podcast on Gwen Lally's 1938 Battle Abbey Pageant.

Teaching responsibilities

PhD supervision: Completions

Damon Taylor, Design art furniture and the boundaries of function: Communicative objects, performative things (Falmouth University, awarded by the University of Arts London, 2011)

Angela Butterfield, Resilient places?: Healthcare gardens and the Maggie's Centres (Falmouth University, awarded by the University of Arts London, 2014)

Jason Cleverly, The artist-designer: Situating creative interaction and interpretation in the museum (Falmouth University, awarded by the University of Arts London, 2017)

Julie Ripley, Surf’s Us: Constructing surfing identities through clothing culture in Cornwall (Falmouth University, awarded by the University of Arts London, 2018)

Vincent Adams, Pastorical dramas: the case for pastiche as a creative agent in the writing, production and reception of a historical play (University of Portmsouth, 2021)

Lorna Sheppard, Illustrated British Cookbooks, 1939-1965: A close Rreading of cookbook illustration as textual communication and creative practice (СÀ¶ÊÓƵ, 2023)

PhD supervision: Current students

Alice Naylor, Eye appeal is buy appeal: The design, mediation and consumption of Kenwood appliances, 1947-2000 (AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership with the Science Museum Group)

Tara McKinney Marinus, Finding Betty Joel: Uncovering the hidden histories of interwar design, making and style (Collaborative PhD with СÀ¶ÊÓƵ City Museum and Art Gallery)

Media availability

I am an experienced presenter, contributor and consultant for television and radio including BBC Two's A House Through Time and Inside the Factory, More 4's David Jason's History of Great British Inventions, Channel 5's Your Kitchen: 60 Years of Fads and Gadgets; Sandringham: A Royal Residence; Farrow and Ball: Inside the Posh Paint Factory and BBC Radio 4's Trading Spaces, The Hidden History of the Window, You and Yours, Woman's Hour and Today. I have also written and given expert comment for newspapers and magazines including Financial Times, The Independent, The Guardian and Homes and Antiques.

Journalist enquiries should be made via my website: 

You can also contact the University's Press and Media team for support and advice on all media engagement, including out of hours

Enquiries for factual television and radio should be directed to my agent Knight Ayton Management: info@knightayton.co.uk or 020 3795 1806