Modupe Oloruntoba

Modupe Oloruntoba is a Nigerian writer, speaker and consultant working in African fashion and creative industries from Johannesburg, South Africa. After studying fashion design in Cape Town, she began work in fashion media, planning to revisit design later, but content stuck. She has written print and digital features for leading international media titles and produced content marketing and copywriting for several notable brands. In content development and consulting, she’s worked successfully and repeatedly with clients like the Fak’ugesi festival and the UN’s Ethical Fashion Initiative. As her work has turned to face the industry more than the market in the last few years, Modupe has supported industry stakeholders in the kind of content and storytelling that works to unlock funding, infrastructure development and other forms of support for the growth and development of African fashion. She writes TheFashionOperator.com, a space for the continent’s fashion business stories. Modupe’s thoughts and expertise on fashion, media and more have been highlighted and featured on select podcasts and websites. She’s also engaged in speaking, panel moderating, and guest lecturing appointments including talks at FNB Art Fair, Turbine Art Fair, FEDISA and STADIO’s fashion school, LISOF.

@modupe.oloruntoba

TheFashionOperator.com

Omar Victor Diop

Regarded as one of the most important Senegalese photographers of his generation, Omar Victor Diop was born in Dakar in 1980 and was brought up there. He now divides his time between his birthplace and Paris. From a very early age, Diop cultivated his vivid imagination as much through photography as through literature and history, leading him to hone his talent in several art forms, from collage and creative writing to fashion and textile design. His influences include the major African portrait artists Mama Casset, Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé, the French creator Jean-Paul Goude, as well as a number of Flemish and Spanish painters of the Renaissance. An invitation to take part in the ninth edition of the Pan-African photography biennial Rencontres de Bamako (Bamako Encounters), held in 2011 in Mali, marked the true beginning of Diop’s professional career as a photographer. His series featured at this event, Fashion 2112, le futur du Beau, draws connections between ecological concerns and fashion photography. This was followed by The Studio of Vanities, launched in 2012 and still ongoing, a portrait series showcasing young and self-confident urban creatives on the African continent. In 2014, with Diaspora, Diop dived into self-portraiture, recasting representations of famous Africans having left their mark on world history. Liberty from 2016 speaks to pivotal moments in the history of Black protest. With his series Allegoria from 2021, he focuses attention again on the need to protect the environment and the importance of climate action. Diop’s work is now part of major institutions collections — such as the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, the Brooklyn Museum in the United States, the Musée de la Photographie de Saint-Louis in Senegal — and has been shown in exhibitions at high-profile international events and in magazines around the world. In addition, as an art director, Diop has led campaigns for many African fashion designers, but also for French brands like Lancel and Pernod Ricard. His first monograph, Omar Victor Diop, was published by 5 Continents Editions in 2021. He is represented by Galerie MAGNIN-A in Paris.

omarvictor.com

Neville Trickett

Asked for his bio, Neville Tricket said “I was born on the 31st of December, 1955. The rest is history.”
Neville is a concept designer of interiors, gardens, retailers and clothing brands.
He and his wife Sharon live at their family farm Saint Verde, near Durban in South Africa. 
The 5 words he says best describe him? Inquisitive, energetic, driven, enthusiastic, nuts.

@trickster55

Gleeson Paulino

Gleeson Paulino is a visual storyteller whose work merges fine art, documentary, and fashion to explore themes of memory, culture, and identity on a global scale. Rooted in his Brazilian heritage, his photography captures the hidden beauty of everyday life, using natural light and rich colours to craft poetic and emotionally charged narratives. Blurring reality and dream, Gleeson’s images evoke deep sensations, offering viewers a space to reflect, feel and reconnect with the world around them.

https://11thhouseagency.com/artist/gleeson-paulino

@gleesonpaulino

Sunny Birungi Dolat

Sunny Birungi Dolat is a fashion curator, creative director and producer of international arts and culture projects. The multi-hyphenate Kenyan was a key member of the curatorial team behind the landmark “Africa Fashion” exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), held between 2022-2023 in London, led by Dr Christine Checinska. He is also a partner at Heva Fund, a Nairobi-based finance and business support facility that has delivered direct investment of over $10 million to over 50 creative industry enterprises across several countries, predominantly in the East Africa region. With a background in styling and photography, Dolat co-founded the Nest Collective, a creative and intellectual group working in an interdisciplinary manner across film, music, fashion, the visual arts and literature, in 2012 in Nairobi, Kenya, where he is based. In 2016, he authored "Not African Enough," a thought-provoking book critiquing the stereotypes that have shaped perceptions of African fashion beyond the continent. Dolat was part of the curatorial team of the 2024 State of Fashion exhibition, "Ties That Bind." This decentralised edition unfolds across Arnhem, Nairobi, Bengaluru and São Paulo. "Ties that Bind" explores the complexities of tradition, the power of indigenous knowledge and the political potential of clothing.

@sunnydolat

péro

“péro" means ‘"o wear" in Marwari, the local language of Rajasthan. péro interprets international aesthetic using local material and skills, taking inspiration from what surrounds us, to make a product that connects with people, wherever in the world it is placed. The Indian-ness of péro rests in the textile process, where materials pass through the hands of one craftsperson to the other, carrying forward the Indian tradition of hand-crafting and creating pieces that are at once unique. The resulting garment evokes some sense of culture from where it originates. This culture communicates internationally in a way that the wearer looks equally at ease in the streets of Paris or London, as she does here, in India. The look is not about an age group or season, it is about a mindset, a willingness to incorporate the effortless style of the locals. The label was launched by Aneeth Arora, a textile graduate from National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad and a fashion graduate from National Institute of Fashion Technology. She calls herself a ‘"extile and dress maker" and what fascinates and inspires her most is the clothing and dressing styles of the local people, which makes them so effortlessly stylish and trendy, therefore making them real trend-setters of our time.

@ilovepero

Tamary Kudita

A product of dual heritage, Tamary Kudita was born in Zimbabwe whilst her ancestry can be traced back to the Orange Free State, historical Boer state in Southern Africa. She studied fine art at Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town, and after graduating in 2017, established herself in fine art photography thus beginning her artistic career. Tamary maintains an active studio practice and has exhibited both in Zimbabwe and abroad. Her investigation into the legacy of colonialism on the family structure has resulted in exhibitions delving into the history of the multi-layered African identity. Her previous solo presentations have taken place at the PH Centre Gallery in Cape Town (2018) and the Women Photographers International Archive, Miami (2021). In 2019, Tamary continued her investigation of post-colonial identity as part of a touring group exhibition held at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe and The National Gallery of Bulawayo. She has received multiple awards, including a Harvard fellowship and being named Open Photographer of the Year at the 2021 Sony World Photography Awards, where she was also the Creative Category Winner.

@africatotheworldzw

tamary-kudita.com

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 co-founded the World Hope Forum with Philip Fimmano as a platform to inspire the creative community to rebuild a better society. Launched in 2020, PROUD SOUTH is a mesmerising visual book that celebrates the creative forces from the southern parts of the planet. Through the colourful and expressive lens of contemporary fashion, photography, styling and art, Edelkoort and Lili Tedde bring together emerging and established talents from wide and far, illustrating that the axis of global creativity has indeed dramatically shifted. In 2025, Edelkoort is launching a second edition of PROUD SOUTH focusing on craft and design. Of the movement, she says, “A southern generation of creatives is standing up, expressing local craft, embracing regional materials, recognising ancestral practices and cherishing indigenous values.”

@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.

@philipfimmano