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Mary-Ann Ball

Senior Lecturer

Nottingham School of Art & Design

Staff Group(s)
Fashion marketing, management and communication

Role

Mary-ann Ball is a Senior Lecturer in Fashion Management, Marketing and Communications at Nottingham Trent University. Her teaching focuses on fashion marketing, consumer behaviour, sustainability, circularity, and systems thinking. She is particularly interested in supporting students to critically engage with contemporary fashion industry challenges and develop innovative responses through research, industry collaboration, and sustainable business practice.

Career overview

Mary-ann Ball holds a Certificate in Advertising (1994) from Dublin Institute of Technology, a BA (Hons) in Corporate Communications (1998) from Solent University, and an MA in Fashion Marketing, Management and Communications (2011) from Nottingham Trent University. Following her undergraduate studies, she worked in account management and marketing within the publishing sector before becoming self-employed. She owned and managed retail businesses specialising in women's accessories and ethically produced gifts, jewellery, furniture, and home furnishings sourced from around the world. Mary-ann joined Nottingham Trent University in 2011 and has since taught across a range of postgraduate fashion management, marketing, and communications programmes.

Research areas

Mary-ann's research focuses on circular fashion, sustainable consumption, second-hand retail, and circular consumer behaviour. Her work explores how retail environments can support more sustainable consumption practices, with a particular emphasis on consumer engagement, motivations, and experiences within circular fashion systems.

A significant strand of her research centres on ReTuna Återbruksgalleria in Sweden, widely recognised as the world's first recycling mall. Through qualitative and interdisciplinary research, she investigates how innovative retail environments can encourage participation in circular practices such as reuse, repair, resale, and upcycling. Her work examines the relationships between retail ecosystems, consumer engagement, sustainability transitions, and the development of circular consumption practices.

More recently, her research has focused on the development of the Extended Virtuous Circle (EVC) framework and the concept of Circular Consumer Identity (CCI), exploring how repeated engagement with circular fashion practices may influence consumer values, meaning-making, and identity formation. Her research aims to generate insights for academics, retailers, brands, and policymakers seeking to support the transition towards more sustainable and circular fashion systems.

Her work has been presented at international conferences including the International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes (IFFTI) and the Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative (SCORAI), and she actively collaborates with international academic and industry partners on projects relating to circular retail, sustainability transitions, and consumer behaviour.

Research Interests

  • Second-hand / Circular Fashion
  • Second-hand / Circular Retail
  • Circular Consumer Behaviour
  • Second-hand / Circular Consumer Engagement
  • Circular Consumer Identity (CCI)
  • Extended Virtuous Circle (EVC)
  • Sustainable Consumption
  • Sustainability Transitions
  • Fashion Marketing
  • Reuse, Repair and Resale Systems
  • Sustainable/Circular Retail Ecosystems
  • PhD Supervision Interests

Publications

Journal Articles

Ball, M.-A. ‘Circular Consumer Identity: Reconfiguring retail spaces for lifestyle transformation’. Manuscript under review with the Journal of Consumer Policy.

Hedegård, L., Ball, M.-A. and Kibe, G. (2026). ‘Reconfiguring sustainable transitions: The evolution of the world's first second-hand shopping mall through a Multi-Level Perspective’. Manuscript under review with the International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management.

Book Chapter

Ball, M.-A. (2026). ‘Circular fashion consumer engagement in sustainable retail environments: A case study of ReTuna Återbruksgalleria’. In: Bai, H. (ed.) Dynamic Fashion Marketing: Internationalisation, Sustainability and Technology. Routledge, pp. 126-140.

Conference Contributions

Ball, M.-A. (2026). ‘From niche to narrative: Reimagining consumer engagement through circular retail ecologies at ReTuna’. Developmental paper presented at the International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes (IFFTI) Annual Conference, RMIT Vietnam, April 2026. (Winner of Early Career Research Initiative Award)

Ball, M.-A. (2026). ‘Circular Consumer Identity: Reconfiguring retail spaces for lifestyle transformation’. Developmental paper presented at the SCORAI Global Conference, University of São Paulo, June 2026.

Ball, M.-A. and Hedegård, L.(2025). Exploring Circular Retail through ReTuna: A Workshop on Circular Economy Practices in Fashion Retail. Workshop delivered at the International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes (IFFTI) Annual Conference 2025, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, London, UK, March 2025.

Course(s) I teach on