Romana Andò
SOCIOLOGIST, FASHION RESEARCHER
Romana is the head of the international Master Programme in Fashion Studies at Sapienza University of Rome, where she teaches “Fashion Branding and Consumer Experience” and "Fashion and Gender". Since 2023, she has been the scientific coordinator of the PNRR research project "Fashion Cultural Heritage: Memories, Museums, Experiences" on fashion musicalisation in Italy. She authored many articles in international and national scientific journals and book chapters. Among her publications are YouTube Content Creators (Egea 2017) and Audience for Fashion. Consuming fashion in the media and with the media (Egea 2022). She also translated into Italian Thinking Through Fashion (A. Rocamora, A. Smelik)
Manora Auersperg
RESEARCHER
Manora is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Applied Arts, Institute of Art Sciences, and Art Education. She studied Art Education and Textiles at the University of Applied Arts, Psychoanalytic Pedagogy at the University of Vienna, and Stage Costume Design at HdK Berlin. In her work as a researcher, teacher, costume designer, and artist, she often works in various interdisciplinary collaborations.
Photo © Natascha Unkart
Dr Matteo Augello
FASHION HISTORIAN AND ASSOCIATE LECTURER AT NABA’S FASHION DEPARTMENT IN ROME
Matteo is a fashion historian based in London, where he coordinates the fashion programming for the Italian Cultural Institute. His first monograph, “Curating Italian Fashion: Heritage, Industry, Institutions”, was published by Bloomsbury in 2022. As a costume historian, he collaborated with the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal Opera House in London, the BBC, the American Ballet Theatre in New York, and World Stage Design. He lectures for various institutions and works as an associate lecturer of the Fashion Department at NABA, The New Art Academy in Milan and Rome since 2015.
Photo © Bruno Moss
Anna-Sophie Berger
ARTIST
Anna-Sophie is an artist who lives and works in New York and Vienna. She studied fashion design and transmedia art at Vienna's University of Applied Arts. In her work as an artist, she has explored issues of consumption and desire as they might relate to clothing, housing, public space and law. She creates work that connects individual perception and personal use with questions of material reality as part of socio-economic circulation. From 2015 to 2017, Berger lectured at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna in the Department of Art and Knowledge Transfer. Starting in fall 2024, she will be a guest lecturer at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste in the Bachelor Fine Art track.
Photo © Katarina Šoškić
Ivana Conte
CREATIVE & ACADEMIC DIRECTOR, LUXURY BRAND MANAGER
Ivana’s 25 years of international experience paved the way for setting up ILA - International Luxury Academy with a vision to bring a change in fashion education. Her career spans roles from Creative Director and Brand Manager to founder of her own womenswear brands. Alongside her industry roles, Ivana has carved a career in fashion education. She's lectured, mentored students, designed academic programs, and managed fashion schools in London and Italy, including Regent’s University, Accademia del Costume & Moda, Rome and Istituto Marangoni in Florence in the role of Director of Education.
Christina Dörfler
RESEARCHER
Christina is an Austrian-based artist and researcher who teaches art and fashion design at KMD-Herbststrasse Vienna. She studied Art Education and Textiles, focusing on fashion design and textiles at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Through her ongoing interdisciplinary project, Excuse My Dust Series, she experiments with various unorthodox dyeing techniques that involve corrosive materials, natural pigments, and sustainable surface treatments. Her work is a quest for alternative forms of collective gathering, producing, and sustainable creation.
Laura Gardner
EDITOR, LECTURER AND PUBLISHER
She holds a PhD from RMIT University, and her research and projects focus on the methodologies of experimental publishing and the performative and critical potential of the page in fashion and other creative fields. Laura is currently lecturing at the School of Fashion and Textiles at RMIT. She is the publisher of Mode and Mode magazine and does freelance writing and editing.
Matthew Linde
FASHION EXHIBITION-MAKER, RESEARCHER, AND WRITER
Linde is the author of Invitation to the Party: Lively Exhibition-Making for Unruly Fashion Practice PhD at the School of Fashion & Textiles, RMIT University in Melbourne. Linde founded the mobile exhibition space and fashion boutique Centre for Style (2013-2016) and has curated several exhibitions on fashion and its complex histories. He runs the column “A Vogue Idea” for Flash Art magazine.
Linda Loppa
CREATIVE DIRECTOR, CURATOR, OPINION LEADER
Along with founding the Flanders Fashion Institute and the ModeNatie forum in Belgium, Loppa was the head of the fashion department at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. She directed the MoMu — the Fashion Museum Antwerp, between 1998 and 2006. Loppa joined the Polimoda International Institute of Fashion Design & Marketing in Florence as director in 2007 and has overseen the institute’s establishment as a leading international school for design. In 2016, Loppa founded Linda Loppa Factory, a studio promoting art, culture, and education. She published two books: “Life is a Vortex” and “The 11 NFContainer Project”.
Photo © Clara Vannucci
Diego Manfreda
DESIGNER AND ART DIRECTOR
In 2007, he founded 5PREVIEW, an independent Italian-Swedish streetwear couture brand. In 2010, he started a collaboration with the Motelsalieri project and the designer Fabio Quaranta for ten seasons. Fascinated by the avant-gardes, with influences from multiple artistic fields, he create transversal content between design, art and music. Throughout his career, he has had the opportunity to work with many companies, both as a creative and designer, such as Nike, Weekday, Cheap Monday, Komakino, ID, MACRO Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma, MAXXI Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo, Contemporary Cluster, Marie Claire, Nero Magazine, Sounds Familiar. He is currently Advisor Leader of the BA in Fashion Design at NABA Campus in Rome.
Yuima Nakazato
DESIGNER
Born in 1985, Yuima Nakazato graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp in 2008 as the youngest Japanese student to do so. In 2015, Yuima went on to found YUIMA NAKAZATO Co., Ltd. In July 2016, he followed Hanae Mori to become the second Japanese national to be formally selected as a guest designer for Paris Fashion Week. Since then, Yuima has continued presenting his collections at Paris Fashion Week, offering his trademark fusion of technology and craftsmanship.
YUIMA NAKAZATO, whose first collection was shown in Tokyo in 2011, has regularly presented couture collections at Paris Fashion Week since Fall/Winter 2016/17. The company’s vision for mankind's future is one in which ‘Eventually, each and every garment will be unique and different.’ By offering apparel that balances craftsmanship with technology, YUIMA NAKAZATO aims to bring tailor-made clothes to a wider range of people.
Daphne Mohajer va Pesaran
DESIGNER, LECTURER
Daphne is an Iranian-Canadian academic and designer. She is the Program Manager of the Bachelor of Textiles (Design) and lectures in fashion and textiles design and research at The School of Fashion and Textiles at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Previously, she taught fashion design at Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo. Daphne is currently undertaking research fellowships for the British Museum (London), the Australian Museum (Sydney), and the International Specialised Skills Institute (Melbourne) to research the use of paper for clothing in Japan and the Pacific Islands. She recently published a book with Valiz, Radical Fashion Exercises: A Workbook of Modes and Methods, co-edited with Dr Laura Gardner.
Karisia Paponi
DESIGNER AND FASHION EDUCATOR
Karisia is a fashion designer who graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium. In 2017, she launched Kharis Aglai, a brand reflecting her interest in sustainable design, aiming to create a “limited edition series” using precious dead stock fabrics, embroidery and patchwork techniques. Simultaneously, she carried out teaching activities. From 2013 to 2017, she taught at Polimoda in Florence. Since 2015, she has taught Accessory Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Macerata and currently teaches Fashion Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Catanzaro.
Dr Szymon Owsiański
ART HISTORIAN
Dr Szymon Owsiański, art historian (PhD), museologist, researcher of the relationship between fashion and art at Bydgoszcz University of Technology (Poland), participant in international research projects, among others, at the Sorbonne and the University of Bologna as the associate on the “Transfashional” project.
Elise by Olsen
EDITOR, PUBLISHER
Elise By Olsen (b. 1999) is a curator, publisher and the founding director of the new cultural institution International Library of Fashion Research. She founded and edited the youth culture magazine Recens Paper (2013-2017) and the fashion commentary publication Wallet (2018-2021). For the past decade, with an international practice, she has curated exhibitions across art & fashion, worked with brands & corporations as consultant, and lectured at various schools & universities. In 2018 Gucci produced a documentary about her work and in 2019 she guest-edited AnOther Magazine, where she currently writes her monthly column “Paper View”.
elisebyolsen.com
fashionresearchlibrary.com
Photo © Einar Fuglem
Iris Ruisch
DESIGNER, CURATOR
Iris graduated from ArtEZ Fashion Design, after which she worked for several fashion houses as Head of Design. She was involved in talent development for many years as a Senior Design Consultant and Talent Scout at HTNK International and became Creative Director of Amsterdam Fashion Week. In 2017, she became a co-founder of the M-ODE Foundation, for which she continued to build talent development and sustainable fashion entrepreneurship as Managing Director. She is also an Advisor to Internationalisation at the Creative Industries Fund and Chair of Fashion at the Dutch Design Awards. Since January 2022, she has held the position of Head of Program for the State of Fashion and as of June 1, 2023, she has been appointed director of the State of Fashion Foundation.
José Teunissen
CURATOR, FASHION EDUCATOR
Since 2023, she has been a director of AMFI, the Amsterdam Fashion Institute of the University of Applied Sciences. Before that, she was dean of the School of Design and Technology at the College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, and a professor of Fashion Theory. Works as an independent fashion curator. She is currently the chair of the board of the State of Fashion.
Clemens Thornquist
DESIGNER, FASHION EDUCATOR
Clemens is a professor in Fashion Design at The Swedish School of Textiles, University of Borås, Sweden. He has a background in fashion design and arts management. His research spans fashion, art, and philosophy, with the aim of developing fashion design through experimental research methods. His action-based artistic research on the intersection of art, fashion, philosophy and organisation has resulted in numerous books, publications, and artistic research work in different media exhibited worldwide.
Tenant of Culture
ARTIST
Tenant of Culture is the name of the practice of Hendrickje Schimmel. She has completed a BA in Fashion Design at ArtEZ School of the Arts, Arnhem, followed by an MA in Textiles at the Royal College of Art, London. By disassembling and rebuilding manufactured garments, Tenant of Culture examines how ideological frameworks and power structures materialise in methods of production, circulation, and marketing of apparel. Working across mediums such as garment, sculpture, workshop, and installation, her work suggests an implicit potential for destruction and transformation.
Jeppe Ugelvig
CURATOR, HISTORIAN, AND CULTURAL CRITIC
Ugelvig is a current PhD candidate at UC Santa Cruz, where his research focuses on artistic responses to consumerism and product culture in the global 20th century. Jeppe’s criticism appears regularly in Artforum, Frieze, and Spike Art Quarterly, where he is a contributing editor. As a curator, Jeppe has staged exhibitions in institutions and museums around the world. In 2021, he founded Viscose, a fashion criticism and research journal. Damiani published his first book, Fashion Work: 25 Years of Art in Fashion, in 2020.
Natascha Unkart
PHOTOGRAPHER
Natascha is a Los Angeles-trained, Vienna-based photographer specialising in people photography and portraits. She works with individuals, organisations, and publications in both commercial and artistic contexts.
studiokoekart.com
nataschaunkart.com
Photo © Natascha Unkart
Alessandra Vaccari
ART AND FASHION HISTORIAN
Alessandra Vaccari’s research and teaching are in the area of fashion history and theory. With a background in contemporary art history, she works at the interface between visual studies and design history. Her interdisciplinary work focuses on three main areas: Italian and European modernist fashion in the early 20th century, the relationships between time and fashion, from industrial to imaginative and experimental temporalities, and present-day fashion cultures and theories in their implications on environmental sustainability and social change. Since December 2019, she has led the Fashion Futuring research group at Università Iuav di Venezia.
