Fashion Studies

Fashion Talks at AUP: Between Democracy, Distinction, Discrimination, & Dictatorship - Making Up Democracy: Beauty, Power, and the Politics of Looking

University Room: Omid & Gisel Kordestani Rooftop Conference Center (Q-801)
6 rue du Colonel Combes, 75007 Paris
Wednesday, November 5, 2025 - 18:00 to 19:30

In this provocation, Sharon D Lloyd explores the uneasy relationship between beauty and democracy - where inclusion often performs as progress, and aesthetics become a form of control. Drawing on her research, activism, and policy work across FACE, the British Beauty Council, and London Metropolitan University's Centre for Equity and Inclusion, she considers how beauty both invites and denies belonging. Through the lenses of race, representation, and resistance, she asks: I if democracy begins with how we see one another, what happens when beauty decides who is seen?

About the speaker:
Sharon D Lloyd is an Associate Professor, Beauty Futurist, and Deputy Director of the Centre of Equity and Inclusion at London Metropolitan University. She is Co-Founder and Chair of FACE (Fashion and the Arts Creating Equity) and former Co-Chair of the British Beauty Councils DEI committee, where she led the 2024 national campaign A Beauty Industry That Looks Like You . Her research and activism explore beauty as a sight of power, identity, and resistance, challenging systems of exclusion in fashion and education.

photo credit: Simon Griggs, 2023

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