Nargess Khodabakhshi is university lecturer in Design History and Theory at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and researcher in Fashion and Styles Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Communication Design from the University of Tehran and a Master’s degree in Fine and Studio Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. 

In 2014, she joined the doctoral program at the Institute for Education in the Arts. Her main research areas are Middle Eastern Fashions, Design Theories and Digital Studies, focusing on questions about the History and Theory of Fashion in Iran and its connections to postcolonial debates in Fashion Studies. 

Currently, she is a lecturer in Fashion Theory, Fashion History and Design Theory at the Institute for Education in the Arts (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna), the Institute of Space and Design (University of Arts and Industrial Design Linz) & the Institute of Arts and Design (University of the Arts Bremen).

Selected Talks and Presentations:

‘The Tale of a City: Politics and Economy of Fashion in Tehran’, Conference Fashion Tales 2020+21, Milan, Italy, June 2021.

‘Dressing Iranian Women: An Introduction to Women’s Magazines Analysis for Studying Fashion in Iran, 1957-1979’, Conference Iranian Studies Association, August 2020.

‘Methods of Doing Research in Iranian Fashion and Clothing’, Institute for Art and Material Culture, TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany, February 2019

‘Oil-fashion and Modernization: Magazine Production and Urban Clothing in Iran 1941-1979‘, Annual Conference of Dress Historians, London, England, October 2017.

‘Women’s Magazines and Fashion Policies of Pahlavi II, 1956-1979’, nmt-Spring School for doctoral candidates, University of Applied Science, Berlin, Germany, May 2017.

‘Fashion Promotion in Mainstream Magazines in Iran, 1941-1979’, Symposium The past, present and future of politics in fashion and textiles, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria, January 2017.

‘Modernization and Oil-fashion: History of Urban Clothing in Iran 1941-1979’, Fourth Non-Western Fashion Conference, Antwerp, Belgium, October 2016.

‘Doing Research in Iranian Fashion: Debates, Methods and Obstacles’, IUAV University of Venice, Italy, May 2015.

‘History of Urban Clothing in Pre-revolutionary Iran’, Institute for the Education in Arts, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria, December 2014.