Lauren Peters

Biography

Lauren Downing Peters, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Fashion Studies and Director of the Fashion Study Collection in the School of Fashion at Columbia College Chicago. Her research focuses on the history of plus-size fashion, reconsidered histories of American fashion and fashion material culture, fashion sustainability, and transformed and inclusive fashion pedagogies. 

Her work has been published in the peer-reviewed journals Fashion Theory, Design Issues, Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty, International Journal of Fashion Studies, and the Journal of Curatorial Studies, among others. She is the author of Fashion Before Plus-Size: Bodies, Bias, and the Birth of an Industry (Bloomsbury 2023), which was shortlisted for the Association of Dress Historians 2024 Book of the Year Award. She is also co-editor with Hazel Clark of the anthology Fashion in American Life (Bloomsbury 2024), and the co-curator with Emma McClendon of the exhibition (Re)Dressing American Fashion: Wear as Witness (Bard Graduate Center Gallery 2025), which is accompanied by a catalog of the same title (Yale University Press & Bard Graduate Center 2025).

She holds a Ph.D. in Fashion Studies from the Centre for Fashion Studies at Stockholm University. Prior to beginning her studies at the Centre for Fashion Studies, Lauren was among the first graduating cohort of the MA Fashion Studies program at Parsons School of Design, The New School. She also holds a BA from Washington University in St. Louis where she double majored in Art History & Archaeology and Anthropology. At Columbia College Chicago, she teaches courses in fashion history, fashion sustainability, sociology of dress, design thinking, curatorial practice, and portfolio preparation in addition to co-teaching the Fashion Lab Practicum. 

Degrees

B.A., Art History and Archaeology Washington University 2010
M.A., Fashion Studies Parsons School of Design 2012
Ph.D., Fashion Studies Stockholm University 2018