Flora McLean is a fashion engineer, artist, inventor and research practitioner with international acclaim.
Colliding technology with craft, Flora has been leading the Footwear, Accessories, Millinery and Eyewear specialism on the RCA's Fashion MA for 12 years, having introduced eyewear to the programme in 2014. Her teaching and research practice extends from her expertise working with atypical materials and leather for novel 3D construction techniques, alongside her foray into inclusive design. She employs material explorations to investigate design and scientific innovation in eyewear, pneumatic structures, the sound of matter, and wearable technologies in textiles, building communities of practice to facilitate others in these processes.
Flora retains that placing high-spec craft skills at the forefront of learning, and educating about the materials themselves is paramount to the sustainability agenda.
After completing her MA at the RCA in 1995, Flora has been running her own accessories label House of Flora, working with high-profile fashion houses, couture designers, and celebrity performers.
Amongst her accolades, Flora won the Jerwood Maker’s Prize (2010), had her work exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum (2009), co-created the BADORA hat with Erykah Badu (2020), and is the Principal Investigator on the 100% Optical Eyewear Design Competition (2014 to present). She is also a Co-Investigator on the Ecological Semiotics of pollution and heat in Athens project, which was shown at the Venice Biennale Architettura (2025) Arsenale.
Key details
School, Centre or Area
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Research interests
Flora’s research is concerned with exploring and developing new creation (or design) methods, through four main challenge areas:
- High spec craft making for durability and circularity
- Inclusivity in art and design
- Collaborative and community design
- Physically intangible sensorial materials like air and sound
She considers these topics by asking:
- How can I use the embodied knowledge gained through my non-linear thinking methodology to advance design and design education?
- How might non-linear design practice be advantageous for the creation of empathic, imaginative and inclusive art and design?
Current and recent projects
PL-EXO Skeleton: Plastic Human Support System
“…plastics are inanimate entities and have no ability of self-action,” (Lambert 2020) nor do they biodegrade at a sustainable rate. We manufactured them as a material and innovation phenomenon, depleting natural resources in the process, and now live with this reality. Alongside developing methods for their reuse, recycle and repurpose, we must now endeavour to reclassify the value of plastics to improve the inevitability of co-existence with our world and environment.
Building from her chapter 'Can Plastics Be a Muse for Future Feminist Innovation?' in Provocative Plastics (Lambert 2020), for this poster Flora proposes to draw from this research and the material properties and behaviours learned through combining plastics and air for two decades as a fashion researcher to offer new methods of their interpretation within design innovation.
To foster a diverse and critical take, she will be carrying out and analysing a series of expert qualitative interviews across bioengineering (Professor Anthony Bull), architecture (Nick Crosbie), art (Leo Carlton), inclusive design (Yasmin Keats), and inflatables (Florence Druart and Jack Irvine), leading up to the conference. In line with her current research practice trapping air with plastics to create exoskeletons for body support and mobility, Flora references the Aerodream exhibition statement, “the sheath is a metaphor for the skin, a protection for the body, enabling an immediate proximity with the air,” (Migayrou and Moimas 2021).
Sound@RCA Cassette Series
Sound@RCA will draw on the rich history of cassette-based releases in the context of art, design and the art school to generate a series of three cassettes, with two sides each. The cassette releases will be released thematically; these themes will operate across a full tape (i.e., two sides) or one side, and can operate as ‘signals’. They may not be comprehensive in documenting sound research at the RCA, but signal shared interests and possible trajectories for future collaborations. Signals might relate to subjects, content or modes of working.
In the spirit of the first year of Sound@RCA, these releases are intended to establish a community of sound researchers. This means that the idea behind the cassettes is to be something that is produced quickly and provisionally, and which captures a sense of immediacy.
Prospective Signals could be:
- emotional geographies
- counterfactual
- histories
- materiality (the matter of sound)
- recording in place
- liveness
Unscripted
Unscripted is an ongoing project which included a REF 2021 output.
A recent output inlcuded the curatorial show concept developed between Terra Neale and the McLeans, and provided a conceptual framework in which Bruce and Flora McLean could co-exist and co-create. Although there were some existing pieces selected from each of their archives, new work was generated for the purposes of this exhibition. Flora’s fashion pieces and Bruce’s art objects built a mini universe, creating their own deliberately unspoken but visual conversation. Juxtaposition allowed each form of practice to throw light on the other.
The exhibition functioned as a catalyst, causing the McLeans’ tacit shared understanding to be explored and articulated. However, there was also an alteration in their making methods during the creation of new material for this show: they explicitly acknowledged their merged methods, aligning on some activities within the production process.
Practice
House of Flora specialises in avant-garde headwear for the catwalk, fashion campaigns and collectors. Working with couture houses and ready to wear, including Givenchy couture, Bill Blass and Diane Von Furstenberg, Flora is often chosen as a collaborator for her innovative ideas and techniques. The ongoing collaboration with Neil Moodie hairstylist ‘Iconic Heads’ is now in its eighth year. McLean designed visors for the Jamaican Team/Puma for the 2012 Olympics as well as taking part in Hatwalk, a hat tour of statues in central London. McLean made a hat for Wellington in Hyde Park corner. Materials often inspire the headwear; PVC, Perspex, felt, leather, wood veneer and nylon. Influenced by strong geometry and architecture as her grandfather and brother are both architects, McLean’s ideas also reference historical figures as well as concepts in modern art. House of Flora has now expanded to include a commercial range of statement fashion jewellery and eyewear pieces. Flora uses fashion film to accompany the collection and shows these at fashion week in London and Paris
The unique witty styles have won the brand a loyal following in the fashion world, across Europe and Asia, namely in the new markets of Hong Kong and Korea. McLean continues to push the boundaries for the future of accessory design with her enthusiasm for new technology and unique vision of the world. House of Flora is widely known in leading fashion press and the pieces are now exported to cool stores and famous galleries as well as to private collectors, worldwide.
Publications, exhibitions, other outcomes
Publications and Conferences
2023 - present, Ecological Semiotics of Heat and Pollution in Athens knit irrigation research project (Co-I). Royal College of Art.
2023, Leather Circularity symposium (PI). Royal College of Art.
2021, The Materialists symposium (PI). Royal College of Art.
2020, McLean, F. 2020. ‘Can Plastics Be a Muse for Future Feminist Innovation?’, in Lambert, S. (ed.) Provocative Plastics: Their Value in Design and Material Culture. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.69-89.
2020, REF #95: Unscripted. Royal College of Art.
2018, McLean, F. 2018. ‘Sao Paulo Design Week Conference’, in Sao Paulo Design Week Conference Proceedings. Sao Paulo: Belas Artes.
2018, Tan, J., Toomey, A., and McLean, F. 2018. Technically Craft: Interdisciplinary Design Practice for Interactive Textiles. Proceedings: Textile Institute World Conference, Leeds, UK. 23-26 July 2018.
2017, Music Stimulates Creative Performance research workshop. Royal College of Art.
2015, McLean, W., Silver, P. and McLean, F. (2015) ‘Wearables’, in Air Structures (Form + Technique). London: Laurence King Publishing.
2015, Fabric of the City symposium. London Met University.
2015, Provocative Plastics conference. Bournemouth University
2015, Plastic Week talks and workshops (PI). Royal College of Art.
2012, Bou, L. and McLean, F. 2012. ‘House of Flora’, in Couture Hats: From the Outrageous to the Refined. Harper, pp. 72–85.
2012, REF: Hatwalk public research event. Cultural Olympiad. Royal College of Art.
2011, Anderson, R. 2011. ‘Flora McLean’, in Fifty hats that changed the world. London: Conran Octopus in association with The Design Museum.
2011, Young, R. (2011) ‘Millinery Madness, Hat Makers With Attitude: Piers Atkinson, House of Flora and J Smith Esq.’, The New York Times, 3 October.
2010, Flynn, D. and McLean, F. 2010. Laser cutting for letterpress printing: new uses of materials and techniques. The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society.
2009, Jones, S. and Cullen, O. 2009. ‘Flora McLean’ in Hats: An anthology by Stephen Jones. London, NY: V & A Pub. Distributed in North America by Harry N. Abrams.
Exhibitions and Presentations
2019, Mut Zum Hut Hat exhibition. Basel.
2018, Unveiled hat exhibition. Craft Week London.
2018, Bowls Bangles Frocks Prints Plates exhibition and performance with Bruce McLean. CCA Gallery. Jersey.
2017, Unscripted exhibition with Bruce McLean. One Paved Court Gallery. Richmond.
2017, Not a Peep hats and accessories featured in film by Piers Alsop. Sodazine.
2014, Fashioned exhibition. Craft Central. London.
2013, Archigram Remix exhibition. MOMA Oxford.
2013, Head On exhibition. Fashion Space Gallery. London.
2013, Head to Toe exhibition. Fashion Space Gallery. London.
2013, House of Flora Fashion Film with Marie Schuller. SHOWstudio.
2012, Framed exhibition. Fashion Space. University of the Arts London.
2011, Garage Centre Contemporary Culture exhibition. Moscow.
2009 - 2013, Anthology of Hats touring exhibition. Victoria & Albert Museum.
2008 - 2009, A Shaded View on Fashion film. Diane Pernet. Pompidou Paris and Guggenheim Bilbao.
2009, Millinery in Motion: Stephen Jones exhibition. Victoria & Albert Museum.
1999, Satellites of Fashion: Hats, Bags, Shoes exhibition. Crafts Council. London.
Awards and Grants
2025, RCA Knowledge Exchange funding event participation
2022, RCA School of Design Research symposium funding
2021, RCA Knowledge Exchange symposium funding
2010 - 2013, UKTI Fashion trade fair funding
2010, Jerwood Contemporary Maker prize
External Collaborations
Talks and Events
2020, Future of Eyewear podcast with Neil Handley. Museum of Optometry.
2019, Field Notes interview with Field Grey.
2019, Mut Zum Hut Hat poster. Basel.
2018, Fashion Engineering talk and workshop. Materials Experience Lab Delft.
2018, Maker talk and workshop. IED Rio Brazil.
2017, Hat Technology talk and workshop. Taiwan Tainan University of Technology.
2016, The New Beautiful interview with Sam Weeks. Sodazine.
2016, Jazzmoda Experience Brazil workshop. Rio de Janeiro.
2016, Moda interview with Martha Medeiros. Vogue Brazil.
2015, Synthetic Aesthetic talk: Plastics in the 1960s Christmas event. Plastic Historical Society. The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.
2015, A New Form of Art interview with Dominica Margescu. Elle Romania.
2008, Stuff talk in Cross Currents lecture series. Royal College of Art.
2008, Uniform talk and workshop. Architectural Association.
2002, Maker talk. La Mangha Gallery. Krakow.
2002, Travelling Hat Show talk with the British Council. State Museum of Art and Almaty Art School. Kazakhstan.
2000, Satellites of Fashion: Hats, Bags, Shoes talk. Crafts Council. London.
