Annie Stannard, a recent MA graduate from the V&A/RCA History of Design Programme, is a writer and design researcher whose interests include twentieth century fashion, women’s histories, youth culture, and gender histories with particular reference to consumption, visual culture and the media.
Graduating from the University of the Arts London with a First-Class honours degree in Surface Design, specialising in print, Annie pursued further courses in knitting and weaving. This background in textiles has informed her research approach during the course of her MA projects and has led to her undertaking historical reconstructions and engaging in experimental embodied wearing practices, providing additional means to access the unwritten knowledge surrounding dress histories.
She was the recipient of the RCA Gillian Naylor Essay Prize (2021) for outstanding scholarship in an investigation of a twentieth century women's satin gym-set from the V&A Museum's Collections.
Her dissertation has focused on the history of women’s swim caps in Britain during 1920-1970, examining the role that the swim cap played in constructs of gender, changing notions of femininity, and systems of power amongst sporting women. Her research into the design changes in swim caps across this time offers interesting new perspectives into the regulation of women and how the swim cap itself became a vehicle for patriarchal notions that led to the control, constraint, and compliance of the female swimmer.
Image: Lucy Snowe, The Swimmer in a Pond, 2018, © Lucy Snowe
