Caryn Franklin MBE, MSc (Psyche) MBPsS - former fashion editor and co-editor of i-D Magazine and prime-time BBC TV Clothes Show presenter throughout the eighties and nineties, is a multi-platform broadcaster, fashion and identity commentator and activist.

In over four decades of practice Caryn has explored the politics of image and self-esteem through commercial, educational and activist positions. Projects have involved international design talent and everyday users of fashion as well as refugees in battle zones, workers in free-trade-zone slums, mental-health and body-image experts and MPs. She sat on steering groups for two successive Government Ministers of Equality: Lynne Featherstone and Jo Swinson.

She takes a keen interest in sustainability both material and emotional. She is vocal about fashion’s treatment of garment workers and has met with and reported on low-income makers in other parts of the world including Rana Plaza survivors in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

She has written for numerous magazines, newspapers and websites, authored five books including a novel, and co-created groundbreaking campaigns - co-chair Fashion Targets Breast Cancer 1996 - 2021. Also, the multi-award-winning All Walks Beyond the Catwalk 2009 - 2015, which triggered mass challenge to fashion’s unachievable body and beauty ideals.

Consulting with the Advertising Standards Authority, Caryn has helped overturn the objectification of women in advertising and was instrumental in exposing one of fashion’s many predators: photographer Terry Richardson.

In recent years and with an MSc in applied psychology, specialising in selfhood, gender, objectification, inclusivity and bias, Caryn also consults with commercial brands, corporate leadership initiatives as well as progressive educational institutions internationally. She is a visiting lecturer, holding both honorary fellowship and two honourary doctorate posts. She is currently visiting professor at Kingston School of Art.

A council member of FACE: Fashion and the Arts Creating Equity, Caryn pursues the accelerated recruitment and progression of Black and Brown academics as well as the centring of Black style and culture, to educational course and module evaluation metrics.

Her latest (audio) book SKEWED: Decoding Media Bias (2022) is co-written and narrated with Professor Keon West and tackles identity bias through current race, gender, sexuality, age and appearance beliefs. It’s available from Audible/Audiobooks.com/Google Books/Apple Books/Kobo and Spotify