Sport & Fashion Study Day 2025 - Resources now available
We were thrilled to hold our in-person study day for Sport & Fashion Month at De Montfort University (DMU), Leicester on Friday 6th June, 2025. Not only home to the renowned International Centre for Sports History and Culture, DMU also boasts a highly regarded School of Fashion & Textiles where their practical courses are underpinned with strong research and historical study of fashion. Both these areas are supported by extensive archives, artefacts, rare books and artworks held by DMU’s Special Collection.
A perfect location for our in-person networking day which brought together case studies and discussions from across the sporting heritage sector as well as provided an insight into the work taking place at DMU.
Catch up on all the presentations by clicking on the contributor links below:
- Keynote speaker: Dana Abdulkarim
Case study presenters:
- Emmy Sale PhD student & Shane Smith, Curator, The Hockey Museum: Dressed for the Field:
Uncovering the History of Women’s Hockey clothing in collaboration with the Hockey museum - Sarah Collins, Senior Lecturer, Deputy Division Head – Fashion Design, Manchester Fashion Institute: Identi-kit – Exploring fan participation in football shirt design
- Rebecca Shawcross, Senior Shoe Curator at Northampton Museum & Gallery: Introducing the show collection and its sports holdings.
- Rebecca Bissonnet, RB Conservation: Introducing textile conservation
- Katharine Short, Special Collections Manager, DMU – Find out more about the Special Collections at De Montfort University and read the blog she wrote following the event.
We would also like to thank fashion historians, Dr Elisabeth Gernerd and Dr Rachel Neal for the discussion outlining the value of using the sports fashion pieces from the DMU Special Collections in their teaching work.
To get a feel for the day have a look at our Sport & Fashion Study Day gallery below
Sporting Heritage CIC celebrated Sport & Fashion and the Heritage of Sportswear throughout June 2025. Find out more about the plans for 2026 by visiting our website and following #SportAndFashion on our socials
Sporting Heritage would like to thank the team at De Montfort University for supporting this event and we would like to acknowledge that this event has been made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund, with thanks to National Lottery players.
