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Staff profile image for Huiying Kerr, Senior Lecturer for BA (Hons) Fashion Communication and Promotion

Hui-Ying Kerr

Senior Lecturer

Nottingham School of Art & Design

Staff Group(s)
Academic Division Fashion marketing, management and communication

Role

Hui-Ying is a Senior Lecturer on the BA (Hons) Fashion Communication and Promotion course in the Nottingham School of Art and Design. She currently teaches across the undergraduate and Masters cohort. Hui-Ying welcomes PhD supervision enquires around her research topics of interest.

Career overview

With a multidisciplinary background in Product Design and Architecture and Critical Theory, Hui-Ying completed her PhD in History of Design at the Royal College of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum (London) in 2017, exploring consumer cultures of the late 1980s Japanese Bubble Economy through lifestyle magazines. Sponsored by the AHRC-CDA program for her PhD, she was also an AHRC-IPS scholar and visiting researcher at the National Museum of Ethnology (Osaka, Japan) during her fieldwork in Japan.

Since 2016 she has held a permanent teaching position at Nottingham Trent University, first in Product Design and more recently in Fashion Management, Marketing and Communication.  Over the years Hui-Ying has been the recipient of several awards and grants, including twice winner of the NTSU Student-Led Teaching Awards for Outstanding Teaching Staff in 2017 and 2019. Hui-Ying is a founding member and chair of the NTU Academic Book Publishing Group and a co-director for the Nottingham Zine Archive.

Research areas

Hui-Ying has previously chaired the UK Design History Society’s inaugural panel at the College Arts Association (CAA) Annual Conference 2018 in Los Angeles, ‘Imagining the International: Repositioning Peripheral Narratives in Global Design Histories’. She also led the international research networking event, ‘Renegotiating the Narrative in Global Design Histories’ supported by the NTU Global Heritage Research Fund (2018).

More recently, Hui-Ying has co-convened and co-chaired the national Academic Book Publishing Conference 2024 in conjunction with the British Academy Early Career Researcher Network. She will be presenting her work and leading a panel on the theme, ‘Cultural Resistance in a Time of Economic Stagnation’ at the inaugural Midlands Conference in Critical Thought 2024.

Hui-Ying is currently writing a monograph based on her doctoral thesis of the Japanese 1980s Bubble Economy through lifestyle magazines. She is also working on a project with the Nottingham Zine Archive.

External activity

Hui-Ying has presented her work at different institutions, including the Tate Research Centre: Asia (London), The Japan Foundation (London), the College Arts Association (CAA) Annual Conference (Los Angeles), Leiden University (Netherlands), IASTE 2020, the Bard Graduate Centre (New York), the Zaha Hadid Foundation in conjunction with the London Festival of Architecture 2023, and the inaugural Midlands Conference in Critical Thought 2024. She is also a regular contributor to the online publisher, The Conversation. Hui-Ying is the external examiner for the MA History of Design and Material Cultures course at the University of Brighton.

Sponsors and collaborators

Research Grants

Nottingham School of Art and Design Early-Career Development Fund Research Grant (2023/2024); Principal Investigator

Nottingham School of Art and Design Early-Career Development Fund Research Grant (2022/2023); Principal Investigator

Nottingham Trent University Global Heritage Research Seed Corn Fund (UK) (2017/2018); Principal Investigator

Design History Society (UK), College Art Association (CAA) Membership and Conference Fees Grant (2017); Panel Chair

Tate Research Centre: Asia (London, UK), Travel Grant (2017)

Royal College of Art Research Student Conference Travel Grant (2013)

Arts and Humanities Research Council International Placement Scheme (AHRC IPS) with the National Institute of Humanities Japan (NIHU), Visiting Researcher Travel Grant (2012)

Arts and Humanities Research Council Collaborative Doctoral Award (AHRC CDA) (2010 – 2013)

Membership and Collaborations

The British Academy Early Career Researcher Network (Conference Co-convenor)

The Conversation (Contributor)

The Design History Society (UK)

Advance HE (Fellow HEA)

Nottingham Zine Archive (Co-Director)

NTU Academic Book Publishing Group (Chair)

Periodicals and Print Culture Research Group; Nottingham Trent University

Postcolonial Studies Centre, Research Group; Nottingham Trent University

Publications

Kerr, H. (2025), ‘Playing the Sporting Life; Sport and Fitness Leisure Through Lifestyle Magazines in the Japanese Bubble Economy’; Okura Gagné, Nana and Gagné, Isaac (eds.), (2025), ‘Handbook of Work & Leisure in Japan’, Japan Documents, MHM Ltd, Tokyo, Japan

Kerr, H. (2024), ‘Health Booms and Bubbly Bodies: Hanako Magazine, Women and Beauty in the 1980s Japanese Bubble Economy’; Ng, Sandy and Rajguru, Megha (eds.), (2024), ‘The Dynamics of Modern Asian Design-Material Culture and Social Agency’, Bloomsbury Visual Arts, London, UK

Kerr, H. (2024), What makes something 'cute'? Inside the exhibition defining the phenomenon; Online article (https://theconversation.com/what-makes-something-cute-inside-the-exhibition-defining-the-phenomenon-222229); The Conversation, UK

Kerr, H. (2023), ‘I’m just Ken’ – a brief history of Barbie’s boyfriend, from all-American boy to movie star; Online article, (https://theconversation.com/im-just-ken-a-brief-history-of-barbies-boyfriend-from-all-american-boy-to-movie-star-210149); The Conversation, UK

Kerr, H. (2023) ‘From Café Bongo to Moonsoon: Nightlife and Playscapes in the Japanese Bubble Economy’; International Symposium: Designing Restaurants and Bars; The Zaha Hadid Foundation; Modern Interiors Research Centre, Kingston University; London Festival of Architecture 2023, London.

Kerr, H., (2022), ‘Sweet Treats and Foreign Foods: Hanako Magazine and the Internationalised Women of the Japanese Bubble Economy’; Lee, Yunah and Rajguru, Megha (eds.), (2022), ‘Design and Modernity in Asia: National and Transnational Exchange 1945-1990’, Bloomsbury Visual Arts, London, UK.

Kerr, H. (2019), Ribbons and Rebellion: Kawaii Fashion as Cute Disruptor; Magazine Article; Kawaii, Issue 15, CRUSHFanzine, NWInc. + KSAD Publication, CRUSHfanzine, New York, USA

Kerr, H., (2018), ‘Sweet Treats and Foreign Foods: Hanako Magazine and the Internationalised Women of the Japanese Bubble Economy’; International Conference: Shared Taste – Food and Exchange in Asia and Europe; Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands; Conference Paper.

Kerr, H., (2018), ‘From Office Flowers to Gym Bunnies: How women used sporting leisure to redefine themselves in the Japanese Bubble Economy’; Panel: Sport, Fitness, and Wellbeing in Art History; International Conference: College Art Association (CAA) 106th Annual Conference 2018, Los Angeles, USA.

Kerr, H., (2017), ‘Hanako Magazine and the Internationalised Women of the Japanese Bubble Economy’; International Conference: Transnational Cities; Tate Research Centre: Asia (TRC Asia); Chelsea College of Arts, Transnational Art, Identity, Nation (TrAIN) Research Centre, University of Arts London (UAL); London, UK.

Kerr, H., (2017), Conference Review, Modern Living in Asia, 1945 – 1990; Blogpost

(http://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/idhbrighton/2017/08/22/modern-living-in-asia-1945-1990/); Internationalising Design History Research, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK

Kerr, H., (2016), What is kawaii – and why did the world fall for the ‘cult of cute’?; Online Article (https://theconversation.com/what-is-kawaii-and-why-did-the-world-fall-for-the-cult-of-cute-67187); The Conversation, UK

See all of Hui-Ying Kerr's publications...

Press expertise

Hui-Ying's research relates to transnational design history, cultural history, Japan and East Asia, fashion communication, lifestyle magazines, and economic bubbles.

Hui-Ying’s research interests include the cultural impact of economic bubbles as materialised through lifestyle, material culture and design; magazines and zine culture; postmodernism and consumer culture; gender; femininity and cute studies; work and leisure cultures; Japan and East Asia, decolonising design history; peripheralities; and the intersectionality of encounters of the local with the international.

Course(s) I teach on