Head, School of Fashion

Associate Professor Circe Henestrosa

circe-henestrosa
  • PhD (Fashion Curation), University of the Arts London, London College of Fashion, UK
  • MA with Distinction (Fashion Curation), University of the Arts London, London College of Fashion, UK
  • MA (Professional Development in Cultural Leadership), The City University, London, UK 
  • BA (International Business Management), Panamericana University, Mexico

Associate Professor Circe Henestrosa is an international fashion curator whose practice is rooted in exhibition-making as a critical and discursive space. Her work explores how curatorial strategies shape, frame and challenge dominant narratives within fashion and material culture. Through her exhibitions, she demonstrates how garments function as powerful agents in articulating more diverse, inclusive and plural social and cultural perspectives.

Dr Henestrosa curated the critically acclaimed exhibition Appearances Can Be Deceiving: The Dresses of Frida Kahlo (2012) at the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City, the first exhibition to interpret Frida Kahlo's wardrobe through the lens of dress, demonstrating how clothing provides a critical framework for understanding Kahlo's disability, ethnicity, gender, politics and self-fashioning. It was the first exhibition to argue that dress is central to understanding Kahlo's creative process and the construction of identity.

She later co-curated the internationally acclaimed exhibition Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up (2018) at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which toured internationally. Together, these exhibitions marked the material culture turn in Frida Kahlo studies, while her PhD, Re-Presenting Kahlo: Curating Otherness and Empathy, articulated the museological turn in Kahlo scholarship. Following the exhibition's presentation in Paris, Maria Grazia Chiuri, Creative Director of Dior, invited Dr Henestrosa to collaborate on the Dior Cruise 2024 collection, inspired by Frida Kahlo. She worked closely with Chiuri and Mexican artisans to integrate traditional Mexican textile techniques into the collection's cultural and creative direction.

Prior to joining LASALLE, Dr Henestrosa held senior arts management roles at the British Council, developing international collaborations and co-productions with artists and designers including Damien Hirst, Mona Hatoum, Peter Greenaway, Dai Rees, Jimmy Choo and Vivienne Westwood.

Dr Henestrosa is the founder of the Equatorial Fashion Research Lab and coined the terms Global Tropics' and Tropical Belt The Global Tropics is a geographical and epistemological framework that repositions tropical regions as centres of knowledge, culture and fashion production, challenging Eurocentric, seasonal systems. The Tropical Belt refers to the zone between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn as a shared climatic and cultural continuum where non-seasonal, ecologically responsive fashion practices emerge.

Her current research examines how contemporary fashion is shaped by climate, culture and materiality across the tropics, and she has led research projects in Singapore, the Philippines, South Korea and Cambodia.

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Books

  • Henestrosa, C., & Wilcox, C. (Eds.). Frida Kahlo: Beyond Appearances. Paris: Paris Musées (2022)
  • Henestrosa, C. (Ed.), Arzalluz, M., & Labarthe, P. Corpus: Frida Kahlo par Katerina Jebb. Paris: Paris Musées (2022)
  • Kahlo, F., Lugo, J. L., Phillips, C., Serrano, J., Henestrosa, C., Turok, M., Murillo, O., Scharrer, B., Enríquez, L., Romero, M., García, P., Ortiz Monasterio, P., Moreno, J., Aguilar Zinser, L. E., & Estrada, G. Frida Kahlo: Her Universe. RM Verlag (2021)
  • Henestrosa, C., Ankori, G., & Olcott, H. C. Frida Kahlo and San Francisco, Constructing Her Identity. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (2020)
  • Henestrosa, C., & Wilcox, C. Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up. V&A Publishing (2018)
  • Ishiuchi, M., Trujillo, H., Ankori, G., & Machiguchi, S. Frida by Ishiuchi (C. Henestrosa, Ed.). Mexico City: Editorial RM (2014)
  • Henestrosa, C. (Ed.). Los museos de cara al siglo 21. British Council México (2005)

Articles

  • Henestrosa, C. ‘Beyond Appearances: From Kahlo to Dior’ in The Routledge Companion to Fashion (eds. Radclyffe, N. Radclyffe-Thomas, B.). Routledge (forthcoming)
  • Henestrosa, C., Ankori, G. ‘Phantom Limbs: Frida Kahlo’s Art, Fashion, and Disability’ in Frida: The Making of an Icon (ed. Ramírez M.C). The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (in press)
  • Henestrosa, C., & Chon, H. (2017). ‘Learning through disruptive interactions’ in Cumulus REDO Conference Proceedings. Design School Kolding. ISBN 978-87-93416-15-4 (2017)

  • Honorary Professor, Norwich University of the Arts; UK (2025)

Exhibitions

  • Tropical Visions: Re-fashioning the Global Tropics (forthcoming)
  • Yo, Maria Felix, Franz Mayer Museum; Mexico City (forthcoming)
  • Frida Kahlo International Tour; Seoul, Buenos Aires, Madrid, Barcelona, Tokyo (forthcoming)
  • Design and Disability, Victoria and Albert Museum; London (2025)
  • Frida Kahlo: In Her Own Image, Bendigo Art Gallery, Melbourne (2024)
  • Frida Kahlo: Beyond Appearances, Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris, Palais Galliera; Paris (2022)
  • Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can be Deceiving, the deYoung Museum; San Francisco (2020)
  • Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up, Brooklyn Museum; New York, USA (2019)
  • Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up, Victoria and Albert Museum; London, UK (2018)
  • Appearances Can Be Deceiving: The Dresses of Frida Kahlo, Museo Frida Kahlo; Mexico City, Mexico (2012)

Conference papers

  • ‘Re-Presenting Frida Kahlo: Curating Empathy and Otherness’, talk presented at Goldsmiths, University of London; UK (2025)
  • ‘Hope and Defiance’, presented at the Frida Kahlo Opening Symposium, ArtScience Museum, Marina Bay Sands; Singapore (2024)
  • ‘Re-Presenting Frida Kahlo: Curating Empathy and Otherness’, talk presented at Parsons, The New School; New York (2024)
  • ‘Indigeneity and Fashion: From Frida Kahlo to Dior’, talk presented at the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University; Waltham, Massachusetts (2024)
  • ‘Stories Artists Tell Us’, forum presented at the National Gallery Singapore, as part of Tropical: Stories from Southeast Asia and Latin America exhibition; Singapore (2023)
  • ‘Fashioning Disability: Frida Kahlo’, presentation at the international conference: Frida Kahlo, au-delà des apparences, Institut Français de la Mode, as part of Frida Kahlo: Beyond Appearances; Paris, France (2023)
  • ‘Frida Kahlo: POSE Virtual Tour’, presented at the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University; Waltham, Massachusetts (2021)
  • ‘Fashion Culture: Curating Frida Kahlo – Fashion & Prosthetics’, online event, The Museum at FIT. Accessible here (2021)
  • Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving digital curator discussion, online discussion, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; San Francisco, California Accessible here (2020)
  • Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving exhibition virtual tour, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; San Francisco, California Accessible here (2020)
  • Curator talk at the Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving exhibition, Brooklyn Museum; New York (2019)
  • ‘De-stigmatization of Disability through Fashion, Dress, and Identity’, presentation at the Frida: Inside and Outside symposium, Victoria and Albert Museum, as part of exhibition Frida Kahlo Making: Her Self Up; London, UK (2018)

Documentaries

  • Fashion curation
  • Museums studies
  • Craft and heritage
  • Fashion design
  • Image making