Dr Savithri Bartlett
- Senior Tutor (Research)
- Fashion MA
Savithri is a designer-maker and researcher who studies diasporic communities as sites of creativity and resistance, challenging inequalities, and fighting for cultural and political freedoms.
Savithri Bartlett is an ethnographer and fashion researcher at the Royal College of Art. She leads teaching and research at the intersections of fashion, cultural heritage, and race. Her practice spans community collaborations in Ecuador and Zambia, where she addresses gender inequality and explores clothing as a tool for empowerment. Trained in textile print design with couture industry experience and a PhD, she bridges academic research and creative practice, advancing decolonial and collaborative approaches to design.
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Research interests
Savithri’s research positions fashion as a critical site for interrogating cultural heritage, race, and inequality. She examines how clothing and textiles are embedded within socio-political and historical structures, shaping identity, agency, and representation.
Methodologically, she combines ethnography, archival inquiry, and participatory design, with a sustained emphasis on collaborative knowledge production. She centres community-led approaches that ground research in lived experience and local priorities.
Current projects include work with Afro-descendant artisans in Ecuador and communities in Zambia, where she investigates how clothing and craft can challenge gender inequality and amplify cultural visibility. These collaborations inform wider debates on equity, access, and the politics of heritage.
Current and recent projects
Cultural Heritage and Knowledge Exchange: Afro-Descendant Artists of Mascarilla, Ecuador
2024–Present
This project investigates the cultural practices of an Afro-descendant community in Mascarilla, Ecuador, whose work spans mask-making, spoken word, and La Bomba dance. The research focuses on knowledge exchange between the community and African diaspora artists in London, exploring how collaborative artistic practices can address isolation, generate income, and strengthen cultural visibility. Using ethnographic and participatory approaches, the project examines how performance and craft function as tools of empowerment and decolonial heritage-making. Collaborations include community leaders and London-based practitioners, with outputs planned in the form of workshops, exhibitions, and scholarly publications, as well as an impact fellowship to sustain transnational exchange.
Clothing, Gender, and Empowerment: Knowledge Exchange in Zambia
2025–Present
This project explores how clothing and tailoring can be mobilised to address gender inequality and expand livelihood opportunities in Zambia. Developed in collaboration with BISO (a local NGO) and Cecily’s Fund, it establishes a knowledge exchange between Zambian communities and academic/creative practitioners. The project combines participatory design with vocational training to generate scalable teaching frameworks, embed principles of gender equity, and integrate environmental sustainability. It uses clothing as both a material and symbolic resource for empowerment. Anticipated outputs include community workshops, a tailored design curriculum, policy-relevant knowledge exchange, and baseline metrics for long-term impact.
Publications, exhibitions, other outcomes
Bartlett, S., Chester, S., Delamore, P. Broach, Z. (2024) "Dignitas in the Metaverse", (co-authored) in ARtsIT, Interactivity and Game Creation, ed. Anthony Brooks, Springer, April 2024. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55319-6
British Fashion Council (2022) Circular Fashion Ecosystem: Solving Fashion’s Returns Problem. London: BFC
British Fashion Council (2020) Circular Fashion Ecosystem: A Blueprint for the future. London: BFC.
Bartlett, S & Wintersgill, C. (2018) Empowering the Replicant: Visual and Haptic Narratives in Blade Runner. In Kettle, E. and Millar, L. The Erotic Cloth: Seduction and Fetishism in Textiles. London: Bloomsbury.
