Public scholar: Vanessa Mardirossian

Vanessa Mardirossian is a PhD candidate in Concordia’s Individualized Program (INDI), where her research-creation engages an iterative dialogue between textile design, chemistry and environmental health. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in fashion design (Duperré, Paris) and a Master of Arts in textile design (UAL, London). Vanessa has worked as a textile designer for more than 20 years across fashion sectors. Concerned about the environmental impact of this industry, she focuses on developing textile ecoliteracy for designers. This strong ecological knowledge aims to avoid textile toxicity at the early stages. Her research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. She won several awards from Hexagram, the Sustainability Action Fund, The Textiles and Materiality Research Cluster and the Colour Research Society of Canada (CRSC). She has also been teaching at the École Supérieure de Mode ESG-UQAM since 2017, where sustainability is at the heart of her pedagogy.