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Solent Unviersity Southampton logo

Lesley Taylor
MA, SFHEA, FRSA

Senior Lecturer

Department of Art and Music

Lesley Taylor

Biography

Lesley is a Senior Lecturer who leads Re:So (The Solent Retail Initiative), Solent's unique store that encourages students and graduates to develop products to retail, promote their ranges and also manage and develop the store as a business. She currently teaches Professional Practice, Worked Based Learning and Introduction to Fashion Marketing at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Trained as display designer and retail designer, Lesley worked in senior Visual Merchandising management and creative head office roles for department store groups for ten years, then ran her own interior design and styling business for fifteen. Whilst running her business she also taught undergraduate and professional short courses for five years at London College of Fashion and Central Saint Martins, and on MA programmes at Istituto Marangoni. Through these roles she trained Harrods' personal shopping team and travelled to Barcelona to train Bershka's international team of visual merchandisers.

Lesley's Knowledge Exchange work at Solent has seen her write and deliver successful training programmes for independent businesses for two town councils in West Sussex allowing students to work alongside her as part of their Work Based Learning, of which Lesley is the module leader for the fashion undergraduate courses.

She has an MA (with distinction) in Interior Design, is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Association and is a Fellow for the Royal Society for the Arts. She has presented at various London fashion retail trade shows, academic seminars and conferences and is published by Bloomsbury.

Further information

Lesley worked in creative industries for over 25 years covering fashion and lifestyle visual merchandising, as well as crossing over to business-to-business and business-to-consumer in design and print. Alongside lecturing, she has run her own commercial interior styling company (Gloss Interior Styling Ltd) specialising in hotels, bars and other commercial interiors projects, since 2003.

Taught courses

BA (Hons) Fashion Management with Marketing

Do you want to be at the forefront of fashion, launching the latest brands and leading styles? Gain strategic marketing skills and business insight ready for a commercial career in fashion.