Elli Michaela Young
 

I am Elli Michaela Young, a creative practitioner, independent curator, and lecturer in Fashion and Visual Cultures at Middlesex University, specialising in Jamaican fashion and textile history from 1950 to 1970. My research examines the intersections of identity, cultural heritage, and design history, with a specific focus on the previously undocumented histories of Caribbean fashion and textiles.

​

My PhD research, 'Inna Style and Fashion: Fashion, Identity and Jamaica, 1950-1970', addressed a significant gap in fashion and textile history examining how fashion and dress designed and made in Jamaica were used in the construction of Jamaican identities as the island transitioned from colonial rule to independence. During my research, I was faced with the challenge of finding Caribbean fashion and textiles in traditional archives, a challenge that led me to become an accidental collector, building a collection of garments and textiles, photographs, and oral histories, to help me tell the story of Jamaican fashion and textile history between 1950 and 1970. The collection I have built includes rare personal archives, such as photographs of my father from 1954 prior to his migration to England—primary sources that demonstrate the complex relationship between fashion, migration, and identity formation in the Caribbean diaspora. It also includes garments designed and made by the organisation, the Jamaica Fashion Guild Ltd, and garments and textiles made by individual makers in the Caribbean.

​

As co-founder of the Caribbean Fashion and Design Research Network (CFDRN), I work to integrate Caribbean perspectives into global design histories. My current position as Lecturer in Fashion and Visual Cultures allows me to insert these stories into my teaching, as part of my decolonial approach to fashion education, challenging Eurocentric narratives and expanding the canon of fashion and textile history.

​

I created this website to act as a repository for my ongoing research and creative projects, offering a wider audience the opportunity to engage with the design histories of the Caribbean. Through careful analysis of textiles, photography, and design practices, I aim to reconstruct and reframe narratives of Caribbean fashion history.