Westphal College of Media Arts & Design

As a full professor in the Fashion program, I teach fashion and surface design, and various CAD technologies, including Clo 3 Fashion Design. From 1973 to 1996, I was designer/owner of a designer sportswear company whose clients included Neiman Marcus, Barney’s, Bendels, Nan Duskin, Harvey Nichols in London and other fashion stores in the USA and the Caribbean. My fashion design is included in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and has been in editorials in British Vogue, Women’s Wear Daily, The New York Sunday Times Magazine, Harpers and Queen and other fashion magazines.

My background as a fine artist and experience as a fashion designer and small business owner complements the Fashion Design Program’s core curriculum where fine and design arts are the foundation for the aesthetic and cultural concepts of fashion design; and to the development of the technical and management skills and concepts necessary to support design research and experimentation. My research in production, curation and dissemination of virtual fashion and digital cultural heritage presents multifaceted, multidisciplinary problems beyond the scope of the traditional boundaries of the fashion design discipline. It has engaged students as well as faculty from multiple Drexel disciplines; and has included visiting scholars from South Korea, China, England, Australia and Switzerland. This diverse group exemplifies the collaboration I firmly believe to be critical to keeping the academic community vibrant and current.

MSIS, Drexel University, Philadelphia
BFA, University of the Arts, Philadelphia

Selected Publications

Martin, Kathi. Virtual James Galanos: Considering Luxury through a High-Resolution Lens. ICOM Versailles 2020, International Council of Museums Costume Committee. accepted for presentation, postponed for COVID

Martin, Kathi, Jushchyshyn, Nick, King, Claire. Sharing Historic Fashion through the Digital Archive/Access and Interoperability. Proceedings CIDOC Geneva 2020, Digital transformation in cultural heritage institutions. International Committee for Documentation of the International Council of Museums. September 19 to 25, online, Geneva, Switzerland.

Martin, Kathi, Jushchyshyn, Nick, King, Claire. ObjectVR Fashion: The Drexel Digital Museum Project. Society for Imaging Science and Technology. Archiving 2019 Final Program and Proceedings, pp. 6165(5). https://doi.org/10.2352/issn.2168-3204.2019.1.0.14.

Martin, Kathi, Jushchyshyn, Nick, Schar, Raja, King, Claire. James Galanos, Design Integrity. Created and installed 3 ObjectVR videos of historic Galanos gowns. Pearlstein gallery, Westphal College, 10/18,2018 -1/14/2019

Martin, K., Caulfield-Sriklad, D. and Jushchyshn, N. (1917). The Persistent Narrative, Proceedings of the International Council of Museums Costume Committee Annual Meeting, London 2017 June 26-19, 2017, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts, London, UK.

Martin, K., Lamm, S., Tomren, H., Caulfield-Sriklad, D. and Jushchyshn, N. (2017, in press). Experiments in High Resolution Imaging for Exhibition and Publication of Historic Fashion: The Drexel Digital Museum Project. In C. Fuchs and C. Angel (Eds.), Organization, Representation and Description through the Digital Age: Information in Libraries, Archives and Museums. DeGruyter: Berlin.

Martin, K., Caulfield-Sriklad, D. and Jushchyshn, N. (2016). New Media for Exhibition of Historic Fashion, SIGraDi 2016, XX Congress of the Iberoamerican Society of Digital Graphics. 9-11, November, 2016, Buenos Aires, Argentina: The Iberoamerican Society of Digital Graphics. DOI: 10.5151/despro-sigradi2016-550.

Kirkland, A., Martin, K., Schoeny, M., Smith, K., & Strege, G. (2015). Sharing Historic Costume Collections Online. Dress, 41(2), 107–127. http://doi.org/10.1080/03612112.2015.1130394

Martin, K. and Mauriello, D. 2013, ‘Motion and Embodiment 3D Simulations for Historic Fashion.’ Digital Heritage International Congress (DigitalHeritage), 2013.Vol. 2 Oct. 28 2013-Nov. 1 2013, Marseille, France. IEEE Explore. ISBN 978-1-4799-3168-2. Doi 10.1109/DigitalHeritage.2013.6744773. pp. 329-332

Martin, K. and Mauriello, D. 2013, ‘3D Simulation: A New Embodiment for Historic Fashion.’ Proceedings of the International Conference on Culture and Computing, IEEE Explore, pp. 62-67. Doi 10.1109/CultureComputing.2013.19

Martin, K. and Ko, H. 2012,‘Sewn or Simulated: transformational fashion realizations.’ in Design Frontiers – territories, concepts, technologies. Farias, et al, editors, Sáo Paulo, Brazil, p. 358. ISBN:9788521206927 http://www.blucher.com.br/livro.asp?Codlivro=06927

Martin, K. and Ko, H. 2012, ’ A Virtual Fashion Design Research Tool,’ in Visual and Performing Arts. ed. Stephen Andrew Arbury and Aikaterini Georgoulia. Athens: ATINER Publications, pp. 309-320.

Martin, K. and Ko, H. 2011, ‘Imagining Fashion’. Proceedings of The International Conference on Culture and Computing, Kyoto University, Japan, October 19-22, 2011. IEEE Xplore Digital Library. Doi 10.1109/Culture-Computing.2011.18, pp.51-56.

Martin, K. and Ko, H., 2010,"The Imaginative Fashion Experience". Proceedings of the XIV Congress of the Iberoamerican Society of Digital Graphics, SIGraDi. Bogotá, Colombia: Universidad de los Andes, pp. 334-337.

Martin, K., Lunin, L., and Hastings, S. ,2009( eds.), Perspectives on Design: Information Technologies and Creative Practices. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Wiley Blackwell, Vol. 60, No 9, 2009.

Martin, K., and Ko, H. , 2009, ‘Virtual Historic Costume Collections across Cultures and Disciplines; IEEE Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia, Vienna, Austria. September 9-12, 2009. Library of Congress. 2009906188. winner of t h e best presentation in the conference award

Martin, K., 2006, ‘Standards in the Visual and Linguistic Language of a Historic Costume Collection’, Research Journal of Textile and Apparel (RJTA) (special issue devoted to Design, Material and Technology Interface) Vol. 10, No.3, (2006), http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rjta.

Martin, K., Lin, X. and Lunin, L., 2003. Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. Volume 40, Issue 1, October, 2003, pp 280–290. DOI: 10.1002/meet.1450400135.

Martin, K., 2004, ‘The Role of Standards in Creating Community’, Proceedings, Cultural Track, WWW 2004 May 17–22, 2004, ACM Digital Library, pp. 35 – 40, ISBN:1-58113-912-8.

Martin, K.,and Lin, X., ‘Building a Standard Compliant Online Historic Costume Collection.’ Conference Proceedings, Cultural Track, w3c 2002, Honolulu, HA, http://www2002.org/CDROM/alternate/722/index.html .

Martin, K., ‘Good, Better, Best: A Small Collection Reorganizes for the Future, The Drexel Digital Museum Project: Historic Costume Collection’, eSpectra Digital Imaging Report Number Two, Museum Computer Network, 2002, http://www.mcn.edu/espectra/digimg2.html .

Martin, K., ‘Data and Image Standards of the Open Archive Initiative: A How and Why for Small Collections’, Conference Proceedings, Cultural Track, w3c 2001,. Hong Kong, China, among best 10% of all conference papers recognition. http://www2002.org/CDROM/alternate/722/index.html.

Martin, Kathi. “Interface Design, University Brief.” ACM/IEE Interactions, The Second Annual Interface Design Special Issue, 8(2) pp. 85 – 91, 2001, http://www.acm.org/pubs/articles/journals/interactions/2001-8-2/p85- martin/p85-martin.pdf.

Since 1998, I have been directing the Drexel Digital Museum Project, an international, interdisciplinary group of fashion historians and makers, informatics and metadata specialists, and digital media experts from Drexel University, Seoul National University, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, the Fulbright Foundation and the Digital Public Library of America. We are researching production, conservation and dissemination of new media for exhibition of historic fashion. The project has been funded by the Barra and the William B. Dietrich Foundations, a PCA/ACA Noverre grant and others. From 2010 to 2016, I was sponsored as a World Class Scholar by the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism Brain Korea 21 grant to research 3D virtual fashion design in the College of Electrical Engineers, Seoul National University, South Korea. I have published and lectured broadly in the communities of Design, Digital Cultural Heritage and best practices for image capture and documentation.

Selected Grants/Donations

2023 - NEH Digital Projects for the Public (in submission) Another Life: Interactive Digital Twins for Selections of Craft from the Collection of Jack Lenor Larsen. 

$99, 942 

2020 - URBN Avatar Development. Grant # 420052. PI Nick Jushchyshyn. Co-PI Kathi Martin. $15,000

2019 – 12 licenses and faculty training Clo3D fashion design software. $6900

2017 – Faculty Summer Research Award. Exploring Fashion Through the Digital Artifact $7000

2016 - Merle Raab in memory of her husband, Max Raab, founder of Villager Sportswear, $10,000

2013 – Westphal faculty grant, with Dave Mauriello, motion capture for historic fashion, $2500

2010 - 20 licenses DCS fashion design and 3D modeling software, faculty training, $200,000

2008-1019 – Selected as a Korean World-Class University Fellow (working with Seoul National University), ‘Digital Clothing Technology Development’ grant awarded by the Ministry of Knowledge and Economics , South Korea, $30,000

2002 - The Barra Foundation: ‘Digital and Archival Retro-conversion of the Drexel Historic Costume Collection’, $171,280

2002 - William B. Dietrich Foundation: ‘Continued Development of the online Drexel Historic Costume Collection Prototype’, $50,000

Selected Collaborations/Workshops/ Invited Lectures/Honors

2019 – Appointed a Library Fellow of the Drexel University Libraries

2017 – Invited Lecture: Publishing a Collective Heritage Narrative: The Drexel Digital Museum. Regional Meeting of the Society for Scholarly Publishing, University of Pennsylvania, Oct. 30, 2018

2013 - 2019 – MOU between the Fashion Technology lab, Westphal College, and the Digital Clothing lab, Seoul National University

2008 - 2012 - Visiting scholar, Seoul National University

2011 Invited lectures - The Imaginative Fashion Experience: Young-San University, Busan, South Korea; Hong Kong City University, China; Tamagawa University, Tokyo

2011 – Invited Presentation: "Digital Clothing: A New Paradigm for Fashion"; 2 workshops: Creation of Your Own Digital Fashion Show; Advanced Creation of Your Own Digital Fashion Show. Studio 2011, SIGGRAPH. Vancouver, CA, August 7-11

2009 – Invited speaker: Digital Objects in the Classroom Conference, Vassar College, March 16-17

 

Hand silk-screened, 100% cotton batiste anorak. Print and silhouette designed by Kathi Martin for her company, Bobolocon, 1973-1996. Photograph by Norm Parkinson for British Vogue, 1978. Click on image to see selected press.

The Drexel Digital Museum Project, directed by Kathi Martin. Website design and content development by Kathi Martin. THE DREXEL DIGITAL MUSEUM PROJECT – THE DREXEL DIGITAL MUSEUM PROJECT