Sam Hudson-Miles

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Biography

Sam Hudson-Miles is Course Director for Fashion at Leeds Beckett University Cluster, with twenty-five years’ experience in leading existing, and developing new, HE Fashion programmes, one of her most recent being a BA (Hons) Sustainable Fashion. Sam was also interim Head of Art, Design and Fashion from January 2023, until January 2024, and is the Leeds Schools of Arts Research Cluster Lead for FABRICATE: the Fashion and Architecture research cluster, responsible for driving, supporting, and allocating funding to, REF-able research.

After completing an MA in Fashion at Central Saint Martin’s School of Art during the early 1990s, Sam launched her eponymous label alongside a CMT (Cut, Make, Trim) facility, specifically set up for small UK-based production runs, to support emerging independent designers, as well as provide a facility for small runs from High Street brands including Next and House of Fraser.

Sam is at the latter stage of her PhD in the field of fashion and textiles. Her doctoral research draws upon insights from material culture scholarship to the analysis of vintage garments sourced from local charity shops and flea markets in the West Riding of Yorkshire, over a thirty-year period. Her research methodologies are developing an original theory of soul shopping, with the intention to contribute to post-growth attitudes toward fashion consumption, broadly addressing ‘usership’ of clothing as a relational lifestyle within the context of the circular economy.

Areas of Expertise (7)

Fashion Design

Sustainable Fashion

Fashion and Apparel

Garment Construction

Project Managemenmt

Pedagogy in Higher Education

programme leadership

Accomplishments (6)

Fashion Revolution x Leeds Beckett Fashion (professional)

Following the success of their renowned Fanzine series, Fashion Revolution partnered with Leeds Beckett University in April 2024 to produce a magazine dedicated to the fashion activists of Northern England. The magazine is called Sewing the Seeds: Fashion Activism in the North of England. For this issue, I wrote a feature titled My Perfect Piece - a show and tell workshop that celebrates the sentimental value of our clothing.

Burberry x Leeds Beckett Fashion (professional)

Following the success of the LEEDS 2023 Year of Culture x Leeds Beckett Fashion project, Burberry continued their relationship with me. This resulted in a number of opportunities and projects for our students, including the Burberry design team from London and Technical team from Castleford speaking to students; Fashion Marketing students undertaking the Industry Placement Year at Burberry; Burberry financially sponsoring our 2024 graduate fashion show and ‘best in show’ awards; and more.

Alexander McQueen x Leeds Beckett Fashion (professional)

I secured a live project with global fashion brand, Alexander McQueen (AMQ). The project was delivered to L5 BA (Hons) Fashion students, integrated within the Tailoring Principles module. The Head of Design and Head of Special Educational Projects at AMQ delivered a live online launch to the students, visited the Fashion department, and AMQ donated tailoring fabric for the students to use. The project continued in 2024 and AMQ continue to donate fabrics to our students.

ASBO Magazine x Leeds Beckett Fashion (professional)

I initiated a cross-school, longterm, partnership with ASBO Magazine and the D-Foundation. ASBO Magazine is a print publication and online platform that sheds light on the grittiest undergrounds and future fashions. The D-Foundation is a registered charity in England and Wales, with the mission to support youth and young adults secure the skills, experience and connections that it takes to successfully enter the creative media and fashion industries.

Re.Pair Lab

June-September 2024 Re.Pair Lab was a brand-new fashion retail initiative promoting sustainability, creativity, charity, and community, to Leeds city centre. A twelve-week pop-up for side hustlers and change makers, Re.Pair Lab was pioneered by Hemingway Design, in partnership with Leeds Beckett Fashion under my leadership and coordination and situated in Trinity Leeds for three months.

LEEDS 2023 Year of Culture x Leeds Beckett Fashion: graduate photo shoot and runway show (professional)

As a key event in the LEEDS2023 Year of Culture calendar, and in conjunction with Leeds Beckett University's Leeds School of Arts (LSA) £80million building launch, this project was supported by our PVC Tracey Lancaster and Dean of LSA, Dr. Oliver Bray. As Project Lead with Professor Matty Bovan, we planned and delivered a public-facing graduate photo shoot at Trinity Leeds in the heart of Leeds city centre, followed by a graduate runway show in June 2023.

Education (2)

Central Saint Martin’s School of Art: MA, Fashion

University of Huddersfield: PGCE

Affiliations (2)

• The TRANSFER Project: Fashion Conscious or Fashion Compulsive?
• CHARIOCITY: How Can Design Education Help To Revive The Charity Shop Sector, Post Covid-19?

Links (1)

• Leeds Beckett staff profile

Media Appearances (1)

Shop Smart, Save Money

Channel 5  

In June 2018, I was invited, by True North Productions, as a fashion expert for an episode of Channel 5’s Shop Smart, Save Money. This episode centred on sizing disparities of women’s clothing across a segment of the ‘fast fashion’ retail sector, including brands such as Topshop, M&S, Next, ASOS, and H&M. Prior to the show being broadcast, my role as key fashion advisor, relied upon my expertise during the research phase, to define whether the findings aligned with Channel 4’s brief, and, ultimately, the format of the show. Following research into UK High Street fashion retailer sizing charts and measuring and fitting a range of samples from these brands, we decided that the format would use models, spanning UK dress sizes 8, 12, and 16, fitted with the same ‘everyday’ clothing items. These items comprised a white shirt, a skinny jean, and a blazer. The models were asked whether the garments fit them correctly, and, whether they would consider buying them. The findings were relatively clear cut; the cheaper the item, the poorer the fit - due to inaccurate cutting, in the main - and, to some degree, the low-quality fabric. The H&M jeans, across the sizing spectrum did not fit well; H&M, at that time, were implementing a revised sizing structure, due to the level of jeans returns due to fit issues. The second key finding was the overall fit of the garments when considering the ‘grading up’ from a sample size (usually a UK size 8), to the largest size in our sample, the size 16. This is due to the less standardised body shape of women who are larger in dress size than the ‘standard’ size 8, 10, or 12. This episode identified only a snapshot of what has been coined as ‘the UK sizing issue’, and since filming this episode in 2018, the industry, thanks mainly to recognition of diversity - in this case, body shape - are beginning to make positive changes.

Event Appearances (1)

Judge for Smartworks charity

Fashion as a Force for Good awards (2022, 2023, 2024)  

Articles (3)

Fashion North: creating a sustainable fashion ecosystem in Northern England July 2024.

Urban Futures: Cultural Pasts conference

amps (Barcelona) Urban Futures: Cultural Pasts conference (Conference contribution)

THAT dress: soul-shopping as a ‘maker’s methodology’ for post-growth fashion design practice

Winchester School of Art Sustainability Forum

March 2022

Soul-shopping: autoethnography, upcycling, and post-growth fashion International upcycling symposium 2020

Springer

Upcycling transforms the historically dominant, but increasingly exhausted, linear producer–consumer–waste model of the fashion ecosystem into something more circular. The recent rise in fashion upcycling transcends stereotypical perceptions of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) needlecraft or thrift. Mainstream fashion retailers offer incentives to customers for returning their unwanted clothes to store in return for a gift card, with some garments returning to the production cycle, for reinstatement in-store, and re-marketisation as exclusive upcycled fashion. Although this contributes to the upcycling movement, it misses the core ethos that the upcycling of fashion should not only contribute ‘to sustainable shopping as a whole, but also serve as art pieces, cultural commentary and a sense of connection’. This chapter introduces how to disrupt the fast-fashion system by reducing mindless fashion consumption, not from the point of design and production, but from that of the consumer; not as the end-point of the supply chain, but as the driver of the chain, whereby demand dictates supply—through the practice of soul-shopping.

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