Lidya Chrisfens
- MA Arts Pedagogy and Practice, Goldsmiths University of London, UK
- Bachelor in Fashion Design & Textiles, Open University, UK
- Diploma in Apparel & Merchandising, Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore
- Certification in WSQ Special Education Needs, Singapore
Lidya Chrisfens is a fashion educator and designer with 20 years of industry and academic experience. She teaches fashion-making at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, with a focus on creative pattern cutting, digital fashion and sustainable design practices.
Her pedagogical approach is grounded in critical making and experiential learning, encouraging students to work intuitively through the body, material and space. With an MA Arts Pedagogy and Practice (Distinction), Lidya continually explores new ways of teaching that connect process, emotion and concept, championing a curriculum that values experimentation, embodied knowledge and future-facing design education.
Lidya’s research practice operates at the intersection of fashion, performance and philosophy. Drawing from phenomenology—particularly notions of Atmospheric Space, Conceptual Space and the embodied mind—her work explores how memory, emotion, proprioception and material sensibility shape the act of making. She engages transdisciplinary approaches that merge fashion with performing arts, using these as a lens to understand the designer’s internal landscape.
Lidya’s signature blind-draping methodology was developed in 2020 and has since gained international recognition for its ability to reframe how design can emerge through tactile perception rather than visual intent.
Publications
Blind-draping in Radical Fashion Exercises: A Workbook of Modes and Methods published by Valiz (2023)
Awards
- Emerging Scholar Award, 17th International Conference on Design Principles & Practices; Portugal (2023)
- Best Poster Award, 24th IFFTI Annual Conference at Nottingham Trent University; UK (2022)
Research and practice
- Paper presentation, ‘Bridging Industry and Education: Embedding CLO 3D in Fashion Curriculum’ at National Technology Enhanced Learning (NTEL) Conference (2025)
- Co-chair, 19th Annual Conference on Design Principles & Practices (2025)
- Speaker, CLO Academic Discovery; Singapore (2024)
- Paper presentation, ‘Process of Interiorisation’ at 17th Annual Conference on Design Principles & Practices (2023)
- Artist Studio Residency at Dblspace; Singapore (2023)
- Research poster, ‘Walking into the Metaverse’ at 24th Annual Conference on International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes (2022)
- Paper presentation ‘Process of Interiorisation’ at 23rd Annual Conference on International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes (2021)
- Paper presentation, ‘Process of Interiorisation: Explorations of a Novel Approach in Fashion Technique Pedagogy’ at 15th Annual Conference on Design Principles & Practices (2021)
Research and practice
- Blind-draping as a tactile, embodied design methodology
- Creative pattern cutting and experimental construction methods
- Phenomenology in fashion design (e.g. Atmospheric Space, Conceptual Space, embodied mind)
- Materiality and the body in the design process
- Proprioception and tactile perception in making
- Fashion pedagogy with a focus on process-led, critical making
- Interdisciplinary approaches bridging fashion, performance, and spatial theory
- Digital fashion (e.g. CLO3D) and sustainable design practices
- Narrative and emotion in fashion making
- Posthuman theory in creative education
- Fashion as research—methodological frameworks in practice-based design