Lidewij Edelkoort

Co-Founder World Hope Forum

Li Edelkoort is a trend forecaster, publisher, humanitarian, design educator and exhibition curator. From 2015-2020 she was the Dean of Hybrid Design Studies at Parsons in New York where she founded a Textile Masters and the New York Textile Month festival. Her thought-provoking writings and podcasts have become increasingly popular at a time when she is regarded as an activist and champion for change. In 2020, she founded the World Hope Forum as a platform to inspire the creative community to rebuild a better society. She is also on the Creative Council for all of Gap Inc.’s fashion brands, advising the group on creative innovation and sustainable practice. In 2022, Edelkoort collaborated with Polimoda in Florence to establish an innovative new textile masters called From Farm to Fabric to Fashion.

@lidewijedelkoort

Philip Fimmano

Co-Founder World Hope Forum

Philip Fimmano is a trend analyst and consultant, contributing to Trend Union’s forecasting books, magazines and strategic studies for international companies in fashion, textiles, interiors and lifestyle. In 2011, Fimmano co-founded Talking Textiles with Li Edelkoort; an ongoing initiative to promote awareness and innovation in textiles through touring exhibitions, a trend publication, a design prize and free educational programmes – including New York Textile Month, a citywide festival celebrating textile creativity each September. He is the co-author of the design book A Labour of Love (Lecturis, 2020) and the co-founder of the World Hope Forum, a new platform for creative community building. Fimmano is the mentor of Polimoda's fashion forecasting masters and textile masters in Florence, and he is on the Board of Directors for the International Folk Art Market in Santa Fe. Fimmano is also on the Creative Council for all of Gap Inc.’s brands, advising the group on innovation and sustainable practice.

@philipfimmano

Nicole Ex

Founder See All This

Nicole Ex is an editor-in-chief, writer and art historian. After years of working in the field of art and magazine publishing including as editor of Dutch culture magazine Hollands Diep, Nicole founded See All This art magazine in 2015; an award winning quarterly print magazine and online platform which serves as a guide to living with art and nature. In 2019 Nicole launched her foundation Pretty Brilliant; an initiative which aimed to shine light on the work of women artists, in which she pledged to create an anthology of work by female artists which would consist of as many pages as the first print of Janson’s History of Art (the first print of which contained zero women). Nicole has built a constant readership through her work with See All This, in part due to her Wednesday morning columns which give a personal glimpse into her life always through the lens of art. The current issue of the magazine, The Wardrobe as Art Collection (€19.95) was made in collaboration with Li Edelkoort.

@seeallthis seeallthis.com

Kavita Parmar

Co-Founder XTANT

Kavita Parmar stumbled into the fashion industry right out of high school and as they say about people who love what they do, feels like she hasn’t worked a day in her life. In 2010, convinced that transparency and traceability were the need of the hour she started the IOU Project. Creating the hashtag #whomademyclothes. Each IOWEYOU piece comes with a QR code that connects the user back to the artisan weaver and tailor who made the piece thus giving authorship and authentic provenance to the final consumer. The IOU Project documented and put online over 250 master craftspeople in Madras (India) and was a pioneer in using technology to turn supply chains into prosperity chains. The IOWEYOU collection is made with artisan communities across the globe and sold direct to consumer online and with special retailers. Kavita has won many awards for her work including the UNSCC Leadership Award, Luxury Briefing Award for Innovation, SOURCE Award by Ethical Fashion Forum London and the Sustainable Luxury Award in Latin America. In partnership with Marcella Echavarria, in 2018 Kavita co-founded XTANT, her most personal project to date. The pair have worked closely with many artisan communities around the globe, culminating in an annual textile festival on the island of Mallorca each May.

xtant.io @_xtant_ @kavitaparmar

Anas Sheikh

Anas Sheikh is a practicing textile artist and founder of the menswear brand 23°N.69°E . After studying fashion at the Indian Institute of Art and Design. His interests towards the craftsmanship of Ajrakh block prints ignited during his internship with the artisans in Kachchh, Gujarat, deeply influenced his style of working since. He believes the real undertaking should involve hands-on experience while integrating oneself with the surroundings and lifestyle of these artisans. In 2020, 23°N.69°E successfully launched its first collection in collaboration with Sidr craft and Khalid Amin which also resulted in the brand’s collaboration with Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The contemporary artworks of the brand are the voice of the garments, the result of ongoing in depth research craft and local identity: each piece is hand painted and hand block printed using the age old craft technique of ajrak block print in 100% natural dyes.

@23n69e

Daniel Henry

For as long as he can remember, Daniel Henry has been drawn to the arts. Ballet is his first memory, but it was figure skating that allowed him to express himself most. Henry notes how the art form teaches the value of perseverance and hard work, where one learns to fall and keep getting back up. It was through gala costumes that Henry became interested in textiles and, at the age of twenty, he joined La Cambre school in Brussels. There, he quickly realised that material interested him much more than form. The move to the textile design department therefore became an obvious one. A year before graduating in 2001, Henry landed his first contract and became self-employed, setting up a workshop in his family attic. He spent the next fifteen years consulting for the textile industry, working as a designer and artistic director. Over the years, however, the pace quickened, the research aspect became rushed, and frustration set in. So Henry switched to research and development, to focus on the long term, rather than short. At the same time, he never wanted to take off his artisan’s hat, so he offered his know-how to fashion houses, including Maison Margiela. Henry has since devoted all his time to plastic research, with the Sacred as a central theme.

@daniel.henry.studio

AZ Factory

Founded by the late Alber Elbaz in 2019, AZ Factory was a fashion curator that allowed emerging designers to express their creativity to a new level. Partly inspired by the Anti_Fashion Manifesto, AZ Factory became a highly collaborative project, anchored in the highest disciplines of style and savoir-faire. For almost five years, AZ Factory produced pieces that seamlessly blended traditional craftsmanship with forward-looking applications and technology, offering regular immersive experiences throughout well-thought and curated pop-up stores, recreating the eclectic atmosphere of yesteryear fashion stores. in 2024, the start-up ceased production and morphed into an educational initiative, supporting independent designers via a new post-graduate programme called the AZ Academy.

@azfactory

REantwerp

REantwerp is an idea by designer Tim Van Steenbergen, journalist Ruth Goossens, and non-profit organisation GATAM. Collectively, they love fashion but are aware of the harmful effects the industry has on the planet and its people. REantwerp seeks to do things differently: more sustainably, timeless, locally anchored, and with more attention to the makers. All of this without compromising on style and quality. They also believe in the unifying power of fashion; REantwerp works with refugees, and through their craftsmanship and stories, creates limited collections. In return, these collaborators receive recognition and a place in society.

reantwerp.com

@reantwerp

Jimin Lee

Fashion Designer, J.Cricket

Jimin Lee is motivated by a unique aesthetic vision that undergirds all of her projects. Creative, confident, and endlessly curious, Lee is particularly intrigued by the power of clothes to transform everyday life. Born in South Korea and raised in the Philippines, she graduated from Brown University with a degree in French Literature and Semiotics. A talented musician as well as an artist, she dedicated herself to the world of fashion after earning an opportunity to work with Yves Saint Laurent in the heady atmosphere of Paris in the 1980s, embarking on an international career that spanned Saks Fifth Avenue in New York, Genny in Milan and Joyce in Hong Kong. In 1999, she created her first independent fashion label, Jiminlee, designing, producing, and commercialising a fashion ready-to-wear collection for the world's most selective retailers. In 2002, Lee relocated to Shanghai to mastermind, design, and open one of the first multi-brand fashion emporiums in Shanghai, where she later founded Translatio with partner, Angelo Negro. Lee's most recent project, J.Cricket, launched in 2018, signalling her return to her own design and to the creative medium. Intuitive, intellectual, and relaxed, J.Cricket’s range of clothing and accessories offer soft power dressing wardrobe that strikes a balance between casual comfort and worldly sophistication. Each J.Cricket piece is made entirely with surplus fabrics and produced in limited quantities, transforming garments from seasonal trends to wardrobe essentials that are meant to be collected, and loved, over time. The industry is taking note of her example: recently, Business of Fashion name her as one of China's Top 20 Movers, Shakers, and Decision-Makers in Fashion.

jcricket.com @jcricket_

Leonie Obenauer

Textile designer

Originally from Germany, Leonie Obenauer began her journey with a degree in Communication Studies before being drawn to the vibrant fashion scene in Berlin, where she pursued design. It was there that she fell in love with the tactile art of knitwear, finding beauty in the textures and stories woven into every stitch. After two years in Germany's fashion industry, Leonie moved to Florence to delve deeper into the world of textiles, now studying in the Textiles from Farm to Fabric to Fashion Masters program at Polimoda. With a passion for knitwear, weaving, colours, and storytelling, she brings a creative curiosity to every design, seamlessly blending tradition with innovation.

@leonie.obenauer

Verónica Santamaría Querubín

Textile designer

Verónica Santamaría Querubín is a Magna Cum Laude designer from Los Andes University in Bogotá, Colombia, with a minor in textile design. She is currently pursuing an MA in Textiles from Farm to Fabric to Fashion at Polimoda in Florence, and was a finalist for the Dorothy Waxman International Textile Design Prize in 2021. As a weaver, dyer, and embroiderer, she focuses on manual craftsmanship rooted in Colombian and Latin American traditions. Believing in the power of participatory and activist design, she has a multidisciplinary approach to fashion. As a textile practioner herself, she cherishes time, material and technique; connecting with women crafters through yarns and colours is her goal as a textile designer and textile thinker. Verónica has worked with artisan communities promoting slow, meaningful and locally inspired production. She has consulted for Artesanías de Colombia, supporting ethnic communities affected by conflict, and collaborated with traditional artisans in Oaxaca, Mexico. Verónica has experience in the editorial field, research and writing alongside sustainability journalist Rocio Arias Hofman. She has also worked with the fashion designer Juan Pablo Socarrás, supporting ideation, trend forecasting, prototyping and development. She has also taught Fashion Design at Jorge Tadeo Lozano University, Bogotá.

@verodeverdad_

Diane Pernet

Founder, ASVOFF

Along with pioneering the advent of fashion blogging via her blog ‘A Shaded View on Fashion’ (ASVOF), celebrated fashion writer Diane Pernet is also credited with spearheading the fashion film genre, providing a new interactive medium through which artists, photographers and designers can collaborate on creative projects.

Along with founding A Shaded View On Fashion Film (ASVOFF) – an international travelling showcase holding competitions for short films within the fashion, style and beauty genres – Pernet has also curated film projects such as CineOpera in 2010 held at the Corso Como in Milan and NOOVO in Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Prior to launching ASVOF in 2005, Pernet was a digital fashion reporter for Joyce, Elle France and Vogue Paris. The American, having initially designed for thirteen years under her namesake brand, had relocated to Paris in the early nineties, landing her first role as a costume designer for the film Golem l'Esprit d'Exile in 1992.

In 2006, Pernet was commissioned by Mark Eley of Eley Kishimoto to make a film for the brand's menswear launch. Along with filming the documentary, Pernet blogged about the entire journey from London to Monte Carlo and the project served as the impetus for launching a fashion film festival. Pernet’s first festival, entitled ‘You Wear it Well’ debuted in Los Angeles at CineSpace in 2006, laying the foundations for the ASVOFF in 2008, with the festival’s first edition launched in September in the Jeu de Paume national museum in Paris.

@asvof @asvoff_official

Ragna Froda

Festival Director New York Textile Month

Ragna Froda is an Icelandic artist, curator, and educator known for her dynamic contributions to the arts and textile design. She’s the Festival Director of New York Textile Month and the director of Edelkoort Inc. in the U.S. She’s also the World Hope Forum Ambassador for Iceland.

Early in her career, she established her own fashion and textile studio in Reykjavík, Iceland. Over the past 15 years, she has lived in New York, Berlin, and Reykjavík, where she also served as the head of Textiles at the Reykjavík School of Visual Arts. Currently based in New York, Ragna continues to run her studio practice while leading initiatives that bridge craft and technology, reflecting her passion for textiles and their potential to tell stories. Ragna's work is deeply rooted in the process of making, with a focus on colors, textures, and the cultural significance of symbols and patterns in textiles.

@frodadottir