The Team

EVE TOWNSEND
Director

Eve Townsend holds an MA (2014) in Fashion from Ryerson University and a BA (Hons.) (2006) in Fine Art and Art History from the University of Saskatchewan. Her graduate research focused on the history of costume jewelry and its relation to the so-called democratization of fashion. In 2017, she co-authored a book titled Schreiner: Masters of Twentieth-Century Costume Jewelry, which was based on her MA Major Research Project. With a strong interest in material culture and object-based research, Eve looks forward to filling gaps within the FRC’s current collection and expanding it to include a survey of costume jewelry. 

Natalie Welsh
Research Assistant

Natalie is a second year MA fashion student who holds a BA in Fashion Communication from TMU. Her academic interests have followed the disciplines of fashion history, material culture, experimental design and curation. Natalie’s graduate research examines a variety of Canadian women's uniforms dating between 1945 and 1980 to exemplify changing national values on gendered work a quarter century following WW2. Her background in costuming and merchandising has built a base for her to approach storytelling through curatorial design. Natalie looks forward to promoting object based research at the FRC through this exciting position.

Elysia Ng
Career Boost Student

Elysia is currently a third year BA fashion student specializing in fashion studies. She is interested in exploring and understanding fashion artifacts as objects imbued with biographies, memories and embodied ephemera, through a disability justice and queer studies lens. Elysia is excited about utilizing her background in web design and marketing to make the FRC more accessible for everyone!

DR. ALISON MATTHEWS DAVID
Faculty Advisor

Dr. Alison Matthews David was awarded a PhD in Art History from Stanford University. She is a historian of dress and textiles, focusing on the nineteenth and early twentieth-century fashion, accessories and material culture. Her work intersects with multiple areas including medical history, criminology, and occupational health. Her creative work includes fashion curation, and she launched the journal Fashion Studies with her co-editor Dr. Ben Barry in 2018. She is currently the Graduate Program Director for Ryerson’s MA Fashion program.

DR. INGRID E. MIDA
Responsible for the Revival of the FRC

Dr. Ingrid E. Mida holds a PhD (2019) in Art History & Visual Culture from York University and an MA (2013) in Fashion from Ryerson University. During her graduate studies, from 2012-2019, she was responsible for the revival, curation and management of the Ryerson Fashion Research Collection. Dr. Mida is the author of many scholarly essays and of two books including Reading Fashion in Art (2020) and the editor of The Journal of Dress History; she is a member of the International Council of Museums Canada, and board trustee of the Textile Museum of Canada. As a current research fellow at Ryerson University’s Modern Literature and Culture Research Centre (MLC), she explores the intersection of fashion and art in the work of female artists from the New York avant-garde.