Professor Emerita

E-mail: parsonsjl@missouri.edu

Education

PhD, University of Maryland; MS, University of Maryland; BS, Pennsylvania State University.

Bio

Dr. Jean Parsons is a Professor at the University of Missouri in the Textile and Apparel Management Department. She received her PhD in costume and textile history and has been an active scholar in both design and history for the past twenty years. She was a professor for 12 years at Iowa State University before joining the TAM faculty. In addition to her academic career, Dr. Parsons worked as an apparel designer, and as a theater costume designer and draper in the Washington, D.C. area. Dr. Parsons is the past president of the Midwestern Region of the Costume Society of America.

Research Interests

Dr. Parsons’ research areas include digital textile and apparel design, sustainable design for apparel, and history of the apparel industry. She is currently using historic artifact analysis as a strategy for developing new approaches to creative processes, with a focus on the intersection of minimal waste cutting with digital textile printing. Her design work, as well as that of her students, has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and received numerous awards. Dr. Parsons is co-author of 20th Century Dress in the United States.