Birgit Lyngbye Pedersen is associated with the Danish Centre for Design Research as a Ph.D. scholar in the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy at the Copenhagen Business School, attached to the Center for Business History.

Birgit Lyngbye Pedersen’s main research areas are the fashion industry, design, and design work in a historical perspective. As a business historian, in her Ph.D. project she investigates the impact of design and designers on the growth of the Danish fashion industry and the process that led to the increasingly crucial role of design for companies in their struggle for market shares. The title of the Ph.D. project is Design som konkurrenceparameter i modeindustriens udvikling fra 1945 til i dag (Design as a competitive parameter in the development of the fashion industry from 1945 until today).

In this project Birgit Lyngbye Pedersen focuses on the interaction among the players in the fashion industry and on the many stories that the Danish fashion trade has managed to create over the years, such as the story about new, modern and different fashion for a new youth culture, the teenagers, which was successfully developed in the post-war years. Among other aspects, she studies the role of these narratives for the development of the fashion industry in relation to other changes in society.

Naturally, product development and product design are of fundamental importance for the fashion industry. But the need for the industry to accommodate constantly varying consumer cultures makes storytelling essential for the ability to market the fashion products successfully. Birgit Lyngbye Pedersen views the deliberate use of design and designers as a marketing tool. You can read more about this in the article Success is not just about the clothes.

The Ph.D. project is co-funded by the Centre for Textile Research at the University of Copenhagen, Designskolen Kolding, the Danish Centre for Design Research and the Copenhagen Business School.

Concurrent with her Ph.D. project Birgit Lyngbye Pedersen has also been engaged in a project concerning the late Danish architect and furniture designer Finn Juhl. Thanks to Birgit Lyngbye Pedersen’s initiative, the public can now see Finn Juhl’s home in the Ordrupgaard museum and thus gain unique insight into his work.

Birgit Lyngbye Pedersen graduated as an Master of Arts (Educational Sociology)
in needlework from the Danish School of Education in 2004.