Helen Storey

Background and education

Helen Storey attended Hampstead Comprehensive School in North London and graduated in Fashion from Kingston Polytechnic in 1981. She trained with Valentino and Lancetti in Rome before launching her own label in 1984. Her father is the late playwright and novelist David Storey.

Career 1984 to 1997

Between 1984 - 1995 Helen built her reputation in the fashion world. She was awarded Most Innovative Designer and Best Designer Exporter in 1990 and nominated for British Designer of the Year in 1990 and 1991.

The Helen Storey label closed in 1995, following which Helen wrote and published her autobiography, Fighting Fashion, charting her personal experience within the industry. Published by Faber & Faber, it was described by Sir Paul Smith as… ‘At last the truth – a perfect and witty account of life and British Fashion’.

Primitive Streak

In 1997, Helen co-created alongside her biologist sister, Kate Storey, the project Primitive Streak, a science-art collaboration elucidating eleven key events in human embryonic development. Primitive Streak is a collection of twenty seven dresses, which brings these eleven key events to life in textile form. First funded by the Wellcome Trust, Primitive Streak made its debut at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1997. The exhibition has since gone on to win two awards, has toured in seven countries and has been seen by five million people. In 2015 the new Reading Room at Wellcome Collection in London showcases the Red Fur Implantation Dress.

Helen Storey Foundation

In response to the success of Primitive Streak, Helen Storey and Caroline Coates established The Helen Storey Foundation in 1997, a not-for-profit arts organisation promoting creativity and innovation.

The Foundation has collaborated with many scientists, and has created eight international touring projects, notably Primitive Streak, Mental, Wonderland, Eye & I and Dress of Glass and Flame.

Eye&I 2005 to present

Eye&I is a performance-led art installation, which provides a space to explore authentic emotional experience. The work was created by Helen Storey in collaboration with Dr Jim Coan, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, and has visited schools in South London.

Wonderland 2008 to present

Wonderland was a collaborative project between Helen Storey, London College of Fashion, scientist Tony Ryan of Sheffield University, and Trish Belford from the University of Ulster, that aimed to reverse wastefulness of the disposable world. Dissolving dresses and bottles which melted in hot water formed part of the Wonderland exhibition.

Catalytic Clothing 2008 to present

Catalytic Clothing seeks to explore how clothing and textiles can be used as a catalytic surface to purify air, using nanotechnology applied through the laundry process to anyone's existing wardrobe of clothes. It is the brainchild of Helen and scientist Tony Ryan.

Catalytic Clothing was announced joint winner of the Sustainability category at the Condé Nast Traveller Innovation & Design Awards 2012.

Dress of Glass and Flame 2013

Helen's new work explores the chemistry of glass and flame, and is a joint collaboration between the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Helen Storey Foundation, University of Sheffield, Berengo Studio and the London College of Fashion. The piece has gone on display at the biennial art and culture exhibition, the Venice Biennale 2013, at Manchester Gallery as part of Manchester Science Festival 2014, Sheffield Festival of the Mind, and at Summerhall in Edinburgh as part of The Edinburgh International Science Festival 2014.

Life On The Outskirts

Life on the Outskirts is a project developed with Dr Rob Knifton at Kingston University that considers mobilising the Helen Storey archive to create a digital resource for education and cultural use for students.

Dress 4 Our Time

Dress For Our Time was launched at St Pancras International, London in November 2015, and is Helens examination of the impact on human beings of climate change. The work has been described as a 'piece of fashion designed not to influence what you buy but to shift the way you think’, with an ‘elegaic short film.' The dress is made from an 'end of life' UNHCR tent from Jordan and was shown, together with the 'Dress For Our Time' film at the UNHCR Geneva hosted conference 'Transforming Lives' on February 11, 2016. The work will continue to be developed and to tour in 2016.

Academic Life

Helen is part of the team at The Centre for Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion, where she contributes to research, curriculum and enterprise activities.

Awards

Visiting Professor, University of the Arts1998
Fellow, Royal Society of the Arts 1999
Research Fellow, University of the Arts, February 2000
Honorary Professorship, Heriot Watt University, 2001
Honorary Professorship King's College London 2003
Visiting Professor of Material Chemistry, Sheffield University 2008
MBE for Services to The Arts – June 2009
Honorary Doctor of Science University of Sheffield 2012
Honorary Professor of Craft and Design (DJCA) University of Dundee 2012
Winner of the Condé Nast Traveler Award, for Best Design & Innovation for the Catalytic Clothing Project (Sustainability category) 2012
Royal Designer for Industry, Royal Society of the Arts 2014
Honorary Fellowship Arts University Bournemouth 2014

Publications

Storey, Helen (1996). Fighting Fashion. Faber & Faber.
Contributor to the Designer Fact File, a guide to setting up a fashion business commissioned by the Department of Trade and Industry and the British Fashion Council