Rate My Professor Emily Wills

Emily Wills serves as Senior Lecturer in Fashion at Curtin University, within the School of Design and the Built Environment in the Faculty of Humanities. She coordinates the Fashion Major, guiding students through innovative programs that integrate design practice, digital technologies, and interdisciplinary approaches. Her teaching emphasizes fashion as object design, surface pattern development, textile manipulation, and creative experimentation, preparing graduates for diverse roles in local and international fashion industries. As a PhD candidate at Curtin University, Wills advances research in fashion and interdisciplinary design practices, focusing on evolving notions of fashion beyond traditional garments toward new materials, techniques, and conceptual frameworks.

Prior to Curtin, Wills held academic positions at LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore, where she curated several influential exhibitions fostering collaboration between students, lecturers, and industry professionals. In 2012, she co-curated '3 Rooms: Object Design and the Body' with Anne Farren, prompting Australian and Singaporean students to explore fashion in relation to the body rather than conventional clothing. The exhibition catalogue, published by the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore (ISBN 978-981-07-4653-7), includes Wills' contributions: 'Introduction,' 'Changing Perspectives: an Interdisciplinary Fashion Approach,' 'Room 1,' 'Room 2,' and 'Room 3.' Other projects include 'Patterns of Trade' (2012), where students created wearable objects inspired by the Asian Civilizations Museum's exhibition; 'Pens & Needles' (2012), investigating surface and texture through illustrative artwork; 'Paper. Pattern. Print.' (2011), merging surface design with fashion textiles via motifs translated to fabric; 'Geometry in Repeat' (2011), developing geometric patterns for interior textiles in collaboration with Korla; 'Surface 1°22' (2010), inaugural showcase of Singapore creative professionals; and 'The Manipulators' (2010), student explorations of stitch, screen print, and shibori techniques. Additionally, Wills directs SURFACE 1°22, a textile design business producing colorful surface patterns, and features in Curtin alumni retrospectives. Her recent presentations, such as work-in-progress shares, underscore her ongoing contributions to design discourse.