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.
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
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
In The Press
Martin, Kathi, Polyak, Emil,(in press). Embodied Fashion, Digital Twin or Distant Cousin. The Journal of the Metaverse, Prof. Zhigeng Pan and Prof. Jianrong Tan (eds.). Asia Pacific Academy of Science Ltd., Singapore. Anticipated publication Spring 2025.
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