Helen Storey

Helen Storey MBE RDI
Fashion Designer, Social Artist

Professor Helen Storey is an artist and designer living and working in London. She graduated in Fashion from Kingston Polytechnic in 1981, then worked with Valentino and Lancetti in Rome. She returned to London and worked with Bellville Sassoon before launching her own label in 1983 with Caroline Coates’ company Amalgamated Talent. Storey’s late ‘80s and early ‘90s collections were noted for their questioning of traditional notions of glamour, expense and women’s image, including boas created from rags and evening gowns made from plastic refuse-bags - Clients included, Madonna, Cher, Prince and Michael and Janet Jackson. Following her second catwalk show, ‘Present Times’ in 1991, Storey won Most Innovative Designer Of The Year and was nominated for British Designer Of The Year by The British Fashion Council. Following the closure of the trading arm of Helen Storey in 1995, Storey published an autobiography, published by Faber and Faber, aptly titled ‘Fighting Fashion,’ charting her personal experience within the industry.

Since the mid-90s, Storey has been drawn towards the world of scientific research, which has culminated in a series of projects exploring the fields of biology, neuroscience and chemistry. In 1997, the Wellcome Trust initiative ‘Sci/Art’, promoting partnerships between science and art, prompted Storey’s first project that combined these disciplines. Alongside her sister Kate, a developmental biologist at Oxford University, Storey created ‘Primitive Streak’ – 27 pieces of textiles and dress that take the viewer through the first 1,000 hours of human life, from fertilisation to the recognisable human form. A double award-winning project, Primitive Streak has toured in 7 countries since 1997 and has been seen by 8 million people.

In response to the demands for ‘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 Helen Storey Foundation has since collaborated across multiple disciplines. This lead to ‘Mental’, a 5-part work that explores, through hand-craft and technology, key emotions present during the creative process, first shown in 2001; and ‘Eye and I’ in 2005-2006, which Storey has described as ‘a new kind of explorative space for emotional interaction between humans’. ‘Wonderland’ a project created with Professor Tony Ryan at Sheffield University, straddles the junction between art, fashion and chemistry and reached an audience of 11 million people in 2008.

Award winning Catalytic Clothing was Helen’s collaborative focus from 2008, working with Tony Ryan and many other collaborating partners to deliver air purification technology to the clothes we already own. The viral campaign reached 300 million people globally.

Since 2013 she has dedicated all her time and research towards climate change and our relationship to it. The resulting project 'Dress for our Time,' two years in the making, launches at St Pancras International in November 2015, and will be the world's first digital piece of couture - displaying climate data provided by the Met Office.

Storey was awarded Honorary Professorships at Heriot Watt University and King's College London in 2001 and 2003 respectively, awarded visiting Professor of Material Chemistry at Sheffield University in 2008 and Honorary Doctor of Science in 2012, Professor in Craft and Design at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in 2012 and made Honorary Fellow, University of Bournemouth June 2014.

She is on The Science Museum Advisory Board. Storey is a Professor of Fashion and Science at London College of Fashio, UAL within Centre for Sustainable Fashion. She was awarded the MBE for services to the Arts in June 2009 and Royal Designer for Industry in 2014.