DATS Annual Conference 2026

Dress and Textile Specialists Annual Conference 2026

PATTERN

Please note:

• You will be asked for an optional visit preference during the booking process.
• The conference dinner is booked as a separate ticket and reserves a place only. Payment for the meal is on the day, at individual expense. Find the Argento Lounge menu and more information here.

A summary of the conference programme is as follows:

Schedule

Thursday 8 October

10:00 Arrive / teas & coffees

10:30 – 12:00 Session 1 (15-minute presentations)

• The C19^th Fancy Trade in Huddersfield, as seen through 2 pattern books - Katina Bill, Kirklees Museums and Galleries
• The Power of Pattern: Reimagining Textile Fragments for New Audiences - Natalie Raw and Rathi Tamilselvan, Leeds Museums and Galleries
• The Red Bedroom Project. Conserving and interpreting the historic colour & pattern of a showroom - Ellen Askey James, Scotney Castle

Short break

12:00 – 13:00 Session 2 (Pecha Kucha)

• Batik history through cotton-printers sample-books - Sabine Bolk, Artist & Researcher
• Introducing the Diasporic Motif: Reframing patterns in machine-made lace and high-street womenswear.- Uthra Rajgopal, Independent Curator
• Pattern as Print, Pattern as Cut: A Study of Zandra Rhodes' Design Process through Practice Research - Lucie Shilton, De Montfort University

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch

14:00 – 14:45 Keynote: Rose Sinclair

Short break

14:50 – 15:30 Invited speakers: 

• Identity and Culture: Amplifying Diverse Voices in Textiles Higher Education and Practice-based Research - Kerri Akowowo, Loughborough University
• Patterns of Behaviour: An interrogation, through practice, of British methods of copying South Asian textile designs in the mid‑nineteenth century - Hannah Sabapathy, University of Leeds

15:30 – 16:15 Questions and discussion with Rose, Kerri & Hannah

16:15 – 16:45 Refreshment break

16:45 – 17:00 Introduction to Horrockses Fashion with Scott Schiavone

17:00+ Gallery & Exhibition visit (The Harris is open to the public until 21:00)

18:45 Conference dinner (pre-booked option), Argento Lounge

Friday 9 October

10:00 – 11:00 DATS Annual General Meeting (or free time)

10:30 + Refreshments (available through the morning)

11:00 – 11:45

• Group 1: The Harris dress and textiles store visit
• Group 2: free time to visit exhibition and displays

12:00 – 12:45

• Group 1: free time to visit exhibition and displays
• Group 2: The Harris dress and textiles store visit

12:45 – 13:45 Lunch

13:45 + Refreshments available through Session 3

13:45 – 15:45 Session 3 (15-minute presentations)

• Tailored Bodies: a sensory object-based analysis of late 19th century frock coat cutting - Viktor Heegaard, University of Copenhagen
• Patterns of Cultural Exchange: A Japanese Taireifuku and Community Co-creation  - Matthew Storey, Curator (Collections), Historic Royal Palaces
• Conserving the Surreal and the Novel: Pattern in Charles James's 1930s Daywear - Eleanor Aitken and Lily Morgan, Birr Castle Textile Archive
• A Museum of Uncollected Things: Patterns of Absence in Fashion Collections - Professor Ellen Sampson and Dr Cyana Madsen, University of the West of England

15:45 – 16:00 Closing remarks

16:00 Depart