Hi, I'm Kristen, an independent researcher, consultant, writer, and educator based in Paris.

I bring twenty-five years in the fashion industry and a decade of collaboration with artisan studios and creative enterprises across the Global South. I partner with brands, foundations, cultural institutions, publications, and universities to develop, understand, and communicate work across fashion, art, craft, design, and the wider field of cultural production.

My practice focuses especially on women artists and women-led creative enterprises in the Global South and on the systems that structure how their work becomes visible, understood, and properly valued. For many women working in these contexts, artistic practice and entrepreneurship are inseparable.

Ways to work together

Design & product strategy. Product design, category strategy, collection development, and culturally grounded market positioning. For fashion, accessories, home, and lifestyle brands.

Research & cultural strategy. Research, program design, partnership strategy, and field-informed insight. For foundations, cultural institutions, and organisations working across craft, women-led creative enterprises, and Global South cultural production.

Writing & editorial storytelling. Research-led profiles, essays, and cultural communications. For publications, brands, foundations, cultural platforms, fairs, and institutions seeking depth around craft, design, materials, and the people behind them.

Teaching & learning design. Courses, lectures, workshops, and curriculum design on fashion systems, artisan collaboration, creative careers, and cultural production. For universities, schools, and learning programes.

Writing

I write about women artists and women-led creative enterprises in the Global South, with an approach that is built on relationships and original research. The pieces below are part of an ongoing series on artisan design houses working in heritage traditions. They sit alongside academic writing examining the dissolving boundaries between art, craft, fashion, and design, and the systems through which creative work circulates.

Selected Profiles

Injiri (India)

With a social media feed that combines sumptuous editorial photography, archival research, and intimate glimpses of the artistic process, Injiri is a body of work that is a tactile cartography of India’s mastery of craft and limitless creativity. Built entirely from within India by someone raised in the craft traditions, Injiri is something like a reclamation.

Chinar Farooqui, a textile designer raised in Rajasthan and trained at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, founded Injiri in 2009. Drawing on history, the arts, and a profound love of her country's artisans and artistic traditions, she works with a constellation of master weavers around the country, spotlighting techniques such as Kutchi extra weft (Bhujodi) in Gujarat, Jut embroidery in Kutch, appliqué of Barmer, and Madras checks from Chennai. The result is a rich and enchanting body of work that includes home décor and women’s apparel; each stitch and every embellishment imparts the geography and unrelenting devotion of its creators.

Siafu (Kenya)

A steady rhythm hums just below the voices in the Siafu studio, the sound of looms in concert across the workshop floor. In Nairobi, a team of artisan weavers creates cotton textiles in colours drawn from the city and founder Gladys Macharia’s imagination: sky blue, electric orange, lavender purple, and olive. Each piece is deliberate, radiating that particular warmth of human touch and intention. Gladys’ love of design took her to Florence for apparel and jewellery training. Upon her return, she founded Siafu with a singular ambition: to put Kenyan textiles at the forefront of African design. 

DAR Proyectos (Peru)

High in the Peruvian Andes, semi-precious gemstones in lush natural tones are shaped into objects to hold, turn over, and play with. DAR Proyectos was born from a chance meeting in the Amazon, perhaps written in the stars, between textile designer Jenny Boucher and industrial designer Mauricio Navarro. Navarro grew up surrounded by the stone-carving traditions of the Andean highlands. Working together with local artisans, they transform gemstones into puzzles, games, and home décor. The studio’s work somehow feels inspired by Jenny and Mauricio’s first encounter: objects designed for human interaction. A completely local operation, DAR Proyectos has won multiple international design awards and represents a rare alchemy between ancestral craft, contemporary industrial design, and a philosophy of connection.

Current Projects

My research examines how art, craft, and design move through systems of value, mediation, and circulation, particularly how fashion houses, cultural institutions, and intermediaries shape the visibility, access, and valuation of women's creative work in the Global South.

Marketing as Mediation in African Creative Economies. Working paper examining creator-authored narratives, visual positioning, and market-facing communication as forms of mediation and infrastructure for women creative producers in African contexts. The project considers how these practices build visibility, access, and value while moving creative work beyond charity, development, and beneficiary narratives.

Blurring Boundaries: Art, Craft, Fashion, and the Reshaping of Circulation in the Art Market. Working paper examining how blurred boundaries between art, craft, and fashion are reshaping circulation in global contemporary art markets, with attention to the role of intermediaries: curatorial platforms, prizes, exhibitions, and designer-artisan-artist collaborations as conduits of circulation and value translation.

“Field of Vision: Women Visual Artists in East Africa, Their Art Worlds, and Career Trajectories" Ongoing independent research. An examination of the intermediary ecosystems shaping the visibility, mobility, and market valuation of women visual artists across East Africa.

The Future Artisan Cooperative / Artisans Bureau: Independent research and systems design 2024-present. An investigation into how women-owned, design-attuned artisan enterprises in the Global South navigate international markets and what a co-created, cooperative infrastructure might look like. Beginning with interviews with 9 women-owned brands across eight countries, this research developed into a cooperative framework, a systems design model, and professional project partnership with Dr. Francesco Mazzarella’s MA class, “Fashion Practices for Social Change," at the London College of Fashion, UAL.

“Future Artisan Cooperative: Shaping a Sustainable Fashion Ecosystem” Co-authored with Dr. Francesco Mazzarella, London College of Fashion, UAL. Currently under revision.