Cheryl Roberts is Tutor in Critical & Historical Studies for Fashion and Textiles at the Royal College of Art. She is a dress, textiles and design historian whose teaching considers history, theory and contemporary practice. She is also Visiting Lecturer in Art and Design History at the University of Brighton. Previously she was a Costume Designer, Art Director and Stylist for film, television, theatre and pop promos. Cheryl studied Theatre Design at Wimbledon School of Art leaving her course to become a practising designer. After a decade she retrained in the History of Decorative Arts & Crafts at the University of Brighton where she was awarded a B.A. (Hons) in 2008 and went onto complete an AHRC fully funded research MA in the History of Design History and Material Culture. (2009). Cheryl is currently in the final year of her PhD thesis which focuses on young working-class women in the 1930s and their accessibility to fashion and how their purchasing power affected technological developments in mass-manufacture. Central to her PhD research is an investigation into the mass manufacture of new fibres for textiles used in garment production in the 1930s. This has led to her interest in current textile developments and their use in the fashion. Cheryl’s enduring preoccupation with film is evident in her has led to research in the future of new platforms of display within the fashion industry.