By Ashleigh Wight
The former head of Kingston’s School of Fashion, whose students included designer John Richmond and the Oasis creative director, has passed away from a long term illness.
Professor Daphne Brooker, 84, taught fashion at Kingston for 30 years, teaching the likes of Soozie Jenkinson, head of lingerie design at Marks & Spencer, and editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar, Glenda Bailey.
“Daphne was excellent and, for all the fear she put into her students, she managed to get the industry to become involved with them,” said graduate Helen Storey, professor of science and fashion at the London College of Fashion, to the Times Educational Supplement.
She was one of the first teachers to be appointed a professor in the 1980s and was also the first person to take graduate fashion shows out of Kingston and exhibit them in venues such as the National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Academy.
Before becoming a teacher, Brooker was a finalist in a Vogue modelling competition in 1952 and featured in the publication several times captured by famous photographers such as Cecil Beaton and Norman Parkinson.
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