Profile
Ben Barry (he/him) is a fashion educator, designer-researcher and academic leader who is devoted to equity, inclusion and social justice in fashion education and the fashion industry. Named to The Vogue Business inaugural “100 Innovators” list, he is Dean and Associate Professor of Equity and Inclusion in the School of Fashion at Parsons School of Design in New York City. He was previously Chair and Associate Professor of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Fashion at Toronto Metropolitan University. As Dean, he is working with Parsons Fashion students, staff and faculty to make equity, social justice and decolonization the standard of the curriculum and culture.
His teaching and scholarship centers the intersectional fashion experiences of disabled, fat, trans and queer people and engages them in the design of clothing, fashion media and fashion systems. He has been awarded grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, and the Ford Foundation. Alongside Sinéad Burke, Ben co-founded and co-coordinates the Parsons Disabled Fashion Student Program, a recuitment, scholarship and mentorship initaive that aims to develop pathways for Disabled students in fashion education and the fashion industry. He is also co-founding editor of the open-access journal, Fashion Studies, with Dr. Alison Matthews David.
Ben holds an undergraduate degree in women and gender studies from the University of Toronto and a MPhil and PhD in Management from Cambridge University.
Degrees Held
BA Women's and Gender Studies, University of Toronto
MPhil Innovation, Strategy and Organization, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge
PhD Management, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge
Recent Publications
Barry, Ben, Nesbitt, Philippa and Megan Strickfaden (accepted). Multi-sensory methods: Toward a crip methodology in fashion studies, International Journal of Fashion Studies.
Barry, Ben (2024). Disability dress wisdom and accessible fashion. In José Blanco (ed.), The Meanings of Dress (5th edition), 174-184. New York: Fairchild.
Barry, Ben and Philippa Nesbit (2023). Designing clothing for and from love. In Roberto Filippello and Ilya Parkins (eds.), Fashion and Feeling: The Affective Politics of Dress, 99-119, London: Palgrave (fashion and body series).
Barry, Ben, Nesbitt, Philippa, De Villa, Alexis, McMullin, Kristina, and Jonathan Dumitra (2023). Re-making clothing, re-making worlds: On crip fashion hacking. Social Sciences, 12(19), 500 (special issue on Rethinking Artful Politics: Bodies of Difference Remaking Body Worlds).
Friedman, May, Evans, Calla and Ben Barry (2023). Intersectionality gets fashionably Fat: Arts-based approaches to gender, fat and fashion, Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal, 8(1), 173-204.
Barry, Ben and Alison Matthews David (2023). A fashion studies manifesto: Towards an (Inter)disciplinary field, Fashion Studies, 1(1), 1-22 (special issue on The State of the Field).
Barry, Ben and Deborah Christel (eds) (2023). Fashion Education: The Systemic Revolution, Bristol: Intellect Books.
Barry, Ben and Philippa Nesbitt. (2022). Self-fashioning queer/crip: Stretching and grappling with disability, gender and dress, Fashion, Style and Popular Culture, 10(1), 45-62.
Clancy, Johnathan and Ben Barry. (2022). Undressing masculinity: How men fashion themselves through underwear, Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion, 9(2), 163-186.
Barry, Ben, De Villa, Alexis, Nesbitt, Philippa, McMullin, Kristina and Megan Strickfaden. (2022). Crip masculinities and everyday dress: Intersectional narratives of imagination, access and ownership. In Vicki Karaminas, Adam Geczy and Pamela Church Gibson (eds.), Fashionable Masculinities: Queers, Pimp Daddies and Lumbersexual, 161-176, Rutgers University Press.
Barry, Ben (2021). How to transform fashion education—A manifesto for equity, inclusion and decolonization. International Journal of Fashion Studies, 8(1), 123-130.
Barry, Ben, Evans, Calla and May Friedman. (2021). Fattening fabulousness: The joys and risks of troubling gender through fat fashion. Fat Studies, online first.
Reilly, Andrew and Ben Barry (eds.). (2020). Crossing Gender Boundaries: Fashion to Create, Disrupt and Transcend, Bristol: Intellect Books.
Barry, Ben and Daniel Drak. (2019). Intersectional interventions into queer and trans liberation: Youth resistance against right-wing populism through fashion hacking. Fashion Theory, 23(6), 679-709.
Barry, Ben (2019). Fabulous masculinities: Refashioning the fat and disabled male body. Fashion Theory, 23(2), 275-307.
Barry, Ben and Nathaniel Weiner. (2019). Suited for success: Suits, status and hybrid masculinity. Men and Masculinities, 22(2), 151–176.
Barry, Ben. (2018). (Re)fashioning masculinity: Social identity and context in men's hybrid masculinities through dress, Gender & Society, 34(4), 638–662.
Barry, Ben. (2017) Enclothed knowledge: The fashion show as an arts-informed research method. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 16(3), Art 2.
Barry, Ben and Dylan Martin. (2016). Fashionably fit: Young men’s dress decisions and body anxieties. Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture, 14(3), 3-22.
Barry, Ben and Barbara J. Phillips. (2016). Destabilizing the gaze towards male fashion models: Expanding men’s gender and sexuality identities. Critical Studies in Men’s Fashion, 3(1), 17-35.
Barry, Ben and Barbara J. Phillips. (2016). The fashion engagement grid: Understanding men’s responses to fashion advertising. International Journal of Advertising, 35(3), 438-464.
Barry, Ben and Dylan Martin. (2016). Gender rebels: Inside the wardrobes of young gay men with subversive style. Fashion, Style & Popular Culture, 3(2), 225-250.