“Whoever takes over from me, it’s going to actually have a real influence on what happens next.” stated the Royal College of Art’s outgoing Head of Fashion, Wendy Dagworthy in one of her last interviews

Currently achieving just that is her successor, Zowie Broach who since taking over in October last year, has been enacting changes to realize her vision of an MA course that’s “led by what the students want and let them forge their own pathways.”

Given her anarchic art based background, it’s no surprise Broach likes shaking things up. After graduating from Plymouth and Middlesex Universities, she set up the avant garde label, Boudicca with her partner, Brian Kirkby in 1997. Working defiantly outside of the mainstream, Boudicca have done everything from showing as part of the prestigious Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in 2007 to collaborating with filmmaker Mike Figgis.

And while her academic career has seen stints at Parsons The New School of Design, London College of Fashion and Westminster College, the lure of working at the RCA was always strong for her: “It’s one of the only pure Masters school in the world. Even the location – you feel the energy of ideas.” Teaching for her is all about the push and pull of ideas: “I’ve always enjoyed the process of teaching. It is interesting – you can have all this knowledge but if you don’t benefit from it or utilize it, then what’s it for? And what teaching does is that is opens up your own synapses actually. And seeing that connect to the students and to see them blossom from that – that’s very precious. It’s like going on a journey with people rather than just enforcing a journey on them. So when you’re part of a journey, it also pushes you.”

Shop the Boudicca Archive here.

Read the full post on Another Magazine.