Professor of Practice

Mung Lar Lam holds the inaugural position of Professor of Practice in the School of Fashion and Textiles at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She is a highly experienced professional with a diverse background in the fashion industry and academia. With 20 years of industry experience, she has designed menswear and womenswear in New York and Paris, and successfully launched her eponymous lines which sold across the United States, Europe, and the Caribbean Islands. Transitioning to executive management roles, Professor Lam has demonstrated expertise in Product Development, Technical Design, Product Testing/Analysis, and Global Sourcing. Her leadership and negotiation skills have played a pivotal role in driving global initiatives for international brands such as Gap Inc. and Spiegel Catalogue. Notably, Professor Lam was a finalist for the Global Change Award 2022 as a member of the EcoClean team, recognised for their contributions to waterless textiles cleaning technology.

Professor Lam brings over 15 years of experience in fashion education and administration, with strong expertise in programme design, curriculum development, pedagogical strategies, and industry integration.  She is also passionate about online education, and instructional design solutions to enhance digital creative learning while promoting diversity, inclusion, and accessibility.  With a strong commitment to education, she has held various leadership positions prior to joining PolyU, including Head of Online Fashion Design and Associate Professor at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, where she redesigned the Fashion Design programme for both ground and online modalities with notably improved student learning outcomes.  Professor Lam also held the position of Director and Assistant Professor at the Parsons School of Fashion in New York, overseeing the AAS programmes in Fashion Design and Fashion Marketing for both ground and online modalities. During her tenure, she sat on the executive committee, fostered external partnerships, and lead the task force responsible for redesigning and updating the AAS programmes to ensure their relevance and effectiveness.

Furthermore, Professor Lam is an accomplished practicing artist with an impressive international exhibition history spanning over 15 years. She has been invited as Artist-in-Resident worldwide and her artwork has been showcased in prestigious solo and group exhibitions at renowned international museums and galleries, including The Courtauld Institute of Art in London, The Contemporary Craft Museum in Portland, Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, and The Drawing Center in New York, among others. She has been invited to speak at The Women’s Interchange at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, The University of Oxford, The Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles and The Surface Design Association Conference, to name a few.  Her artistic talents have also been recognised in publications such as Fiber Arts Now, Fiber Arts Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, SF Gate and The South China Post, and as a finalist for the Ford Foundation Fellowship and the SECA Award given by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.  

Professor Lam holds an MPhil degree in Economic and Social History from the University of Cambridge, where she was a member of the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure. Her research focused on the occupational makeup and division of labour in the textiles industry during the industrial revolution.  Her research provided evidential data and valuable insights into the unrecorded contributions of women's labour to the significant economic growth driven by the textiles industry during this transformative period in history. Additionally, Professor Lam served as a Visiting Research Fellow at the International Gender Studies Centre at the University of Oxford. Furthermore, she holds an MFA and a Bachelor of Art degree in Textiles from the California College of the Arts and San Francisco State University, respectively, and an associate degree in Fashion Design from the Fashion Institute of Technology.