World Hope Forum Argentina
Curated by Gimena Garmendia, WHF Ambassador for Argentina
Sunday, November 16th
9:00–12:00 New York EST
10:00–13:00 Buenos Aires ART
15:00–18:00 Madrid CET
HEADLINERS
Gimena Garmendia
With a background in marketing, fashion and textile design, Gimena Garmendia founded SUDESTADA in 2020 for creative talent and businesses to expand, grow and achieve their wildest dreams. SUDESTADA is a multidisciplinary studio at the intersection of fashion and art focused on identifying and amplifying the voices of all kinds of creatives — from artists to artisans, designers, brands, collectives and more —who are being overlooked by the mainstream narrative of the industry.
@la.sudestada
Lidewij Edelkoort
Lidewij Edelkoort is arguably the world's most renowned trend forecaster, working in industries from fashion to food, design, architecture, tech, communication, automotive and retail. Founded in 1986, her company Trend Union produces trend tools for strategists, designers and marketers at brands from Zara to Prada. She is also a publisher, humanitarian, educator and exhibition curator. In 2015, she established an MFA Textile Masters at Parsons and New York Textile Month. In 2020, she co-founded the World Hope Forum to inspire the creative community to rebuild a better society. Since 2022, she is the founder and mentor of Polimoda’s textile master Farm to Fabric to Fashion.Edelkoort has been named one of the Most Influential People in Fashion and one of the Most Influential People in Design. Written in 2014, her much-talked about ANTI_FASHION Manifesto was the first to raise awareness about the shifts and upheavals currently experienced in the global fashion industry. From 1998-2008 she was Chairwoman of Design Academy Eindhoven before moving to New York from 2015-2020 where she was Dean of Hybrid Design Studies at Parsons, establishing an MFA Textile Masters and New York Textile Month. In 2020, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, she co-founded the World Hope Forum as a platform to inspire the creative community to rebuild a better society. Edelkoort's latest publications include Proud South (2022), Uxua Utopia (2022), and Proud South Craft (2025), each of which celebrate the creative talent of the Global South.
Philip Fimmano
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.
OTHER SPEAKERS
Sabrina Stadlober
Sabrina Stadlober is a fashion, textile and product designer based in Austria. Her work is defined by a conceptual, research-led approach that brings ethics and aesthetics into dialogue. She earned her Master’s degree in Textiles from Polimoda, completing the From Farm to Fabric to Fashion programme under the mentorship of Lidewij Edelkoort and Philip Fimmano. During her studies, Stadlober developed a deep appreciation for natural fibres—particularly alpaca wool. Her graduation project, Soil to Soil, is a fully circular collection created in collaboration with Austrian alpaca breeders. It was shortlisted for the 2024 Dorothy Waxman International Textile Design Prize. Stadlober’s practice spans textiles and wearable design, with a focus on natural materials and responsible craft as forms of creative expression. In addition to developing her own slow collections, she frequently collaborates across disciplines. One long-standing partnership is with the acclaimed design studio 13&9 Design. Together, they co-created Architectural Fashion, exhibited at La Biennale di Venezia in 2016, as well as several internationally recognised product designs centred on health and well-being.
Oyuna Tserendorj
Oyuna Tserendorj was born and raised in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and trained as a clothing engineer in Budapest, Hungary. She set up her eponymous brand in London in 2002 with an aim to design thoughtfully, using the world's most luxurious natural ingredient, Mongolian cashmere. Softness of each piece is designed to shield and empower the wearer, with an underlying principle that we should have few, but precious objects in our lives that maintain relevance and quality over time. Cashmere is much more than a luxurious fibre to Oyuna. It is the thread that keeps her connected to Mongolia, the land and culture she comes from and has strong ties to. Mongolia, the land of blue sky and endless steppes that surrounded her throughout her childhood. Her design identity bears a close tie with the philosophy of freedom, adaptability and lightness of the Mongolian nomadic people. It also draws inspiration from the art and culture of the urban landscape of London and her extensive travels around the world. These contrasting influences are indicative of what has enabled her to create her own language steering cashmere away from the conservative and opening new possibilities for how it can be sculpted.
Kavita Parmar
Kavita Parmar has had a long trajectory in the fashion industry. In 2010, she started The IOU Project as a way to harness the power of technology to give authorship back to the artisan weaver and authentic provenance to the final consumer. Using a QR code to connect the consumer with over 250 master weavers from Madras, the project turned supply chains into prosperity chains. The project won several awards, including the UNSCC Leadership Award, the Luxury Briefing Award for Innovation, the SOURCE Award by Ethical Fashion Forum in London, the Sustainable Luxury Award in Latin America, the New York Venture Fellow Programme, the Unreasonable at Sea Programme, and a Levi ́s Collaboratory Fellowship. Parmar currently resides in Madrid where she has her design studio, teaches courses on sustainability and innovative business models and also conducts consulting work for various clients. Parmar has been invited to speak on sustainability, fashion and new emerging trends internationally. In 2018, Parmar created XTANT with Marcella Echavarria; a global initiative on heritage textiles that gathers people together once a year in Mallorca to celebrate the art in craft. One of the attendees at XTANT beautifully described it as a mix between Burning Man, a TED conference and a village fair.
Pascale Gatzen
Pascale Gatzen is an artist, educator and fashion designer based in the Netherlands. Within her art and design practice, Gatzen produces and facilitates large collaborative projects using clothing as her main medium. Embracing fashion as a mode of human togetherness, the focus of both her artistic practice and her teaching is on the relational and empowering aspects of fashion, advancing co-operative models of production and exchange. Previously, as an Associate Professor at Parsons of Design in New York, she developed and implemented an alternative fashion curriculum with an emphasis on community, self-expression and love. She is a founding member of Friends of Light and The Linen Project, two worker cooperatives for textile production and agriculture in Upstate New York and the Netherlands, and was formerly the head of the Practice Held in Common Masters at ArtEZ in Arnhem. Her work has been shown and published internationally.
Cynthia Hathaway
Cynthia Hathaway is a designer, textile researcher and activist residing in the Netherlands. Hathaway advocates for wool that comes from shepherding and mobile grazing systems. Hathaway is the initiator of the Wool March, a 'soft mob' of shepherds, hundreds of sheep and the general public that walk through urban centres in the Netherlands and elsewhere. The march supports an ancient knowledge system of cultural, social and ecological significance, but is under threat by climate change, industrial farming and fast fashion. During the marches, sheep and humans wear community-felted and embroidered activist blankets made from the Wool Activist Kit designed by Erik Wong. For the autumn of 2026, Hathaway and her team are producing the first-ever Wool March Brussels, a multi-shepherd, sheep and public march from the Dutch Island of Texel to Brussels. Reaching the EU Parliament, sheep and humans will deliver a declaration for the protection of their welfare, their wool and lessons on how to walk more lightly on the planet.
Reina Ovinge
Reina Ovinge is the founder of The Knitwit Stable, a regenerative sheep and goat farm and wool studio based in Baambrugge, the Netherlands. After a career in the fast fashion industry, Reina made a conscious shift toward a more sustainable and transparent approach to textiles. Through The Knitwit Stable, she brings together animal welfare, local wool and mohair production, and education—demonstrating how both fashion and interiors can reconnect with the land. Her work includes garments as well as interior textiles such as blankets, all rooted in traceability, craftsmanship, innovation and ecological responsibility. Reina’s practice shows that textiles can be both beautiful and regenerative.
Blátnaid Gallagher
Blátnaid Gallagher is an organic farmer, locally grown wool advocate and rural development leader based in Ireland. With a Master’s degree from the National University of Ireland and over 30 years’ experience in agri-business, Blátnaid is passionately committed to bringing transparency and traceability to the Irish wool sector—ensuring that wool growers are recognised and fairly rewarded for their valuable contributions. As the founder of the Galway Wool Co-op, she has pioneered a farmer-led initiative promoting transparent, traceable supply chains in the wool industry. A firm believer in the consumer’s right to know where their wool is grown, she is working to restore integrity to Ireland’s wool sector by championing Ireland’s native breed, the Galway. Blátnaid also serves as the Irish Ambassador for FLIARA (Female-Led Innovation in Agriculture and Rural Areas), where she advocates for women in agriculture and champions rural innovation across Europe. Her work has earned national recognition, including appearances on TV, radio and print media, where she shares insights on locally grown wool, sustainable farming, consumer rights and the future of rural livelihoods. In 2024 she was also highly commended by EU CAP Networks in their ARIA awards. A Farming for Nature Ambassador and a strong supporter of Social Farming, Blátnaid uses her platform to highlight the intersections of land stewardship, social inclusion and rural regeneration. Her work blends farming, advocacy, and education—empowering both producers and consumers—and positions her as a leading voice in the movement for a more sustainable and transparent Irish agricultural landscape.
Lindsay Girvan
Lindsay Girvan is the founder of Future Vintage, a knitwear brand grounded in the rhythms of regenerative farming, traditional craft and a deep respect for heritage. From a stone cottage atelier on the organic farm in Scotland she runs with her husband, Ben Cadell—an established organic farmer and advocate for regenerative practices—Girvan creates a "shepherd’s wardrobe" using wool from their own flock of Shetland sheep. Together, Girvan and Cadell are building a truly land-connected approach to textiles, where the health of the soil, the wellbeing of the animals and the integrity of the finished garment are all part of the same story. Each piece is made on restored Dubied knitting machines, reviving heritage Scottish practices while nurturing a more circular and sustainable future for wool. With a background in Scottish textiles, organic farming and creative enterprise, Lindsay brings a thoughtful, land-first perspective to fashion. Through Future Vintage, she is reimagining what local, low-impact clothing can be: honest, enduring, and full of meaning—from field to fleece to finished stitch.
Daniel Harris
Daniel Harris is a weaver and textile advocate. While others may collect vintage cars, Harris collects discarded textile-making machinery, restoring them to weave new tweed textiles. His micro mill, the London Cloth Company, was the first to open in the city in over 100 years. This niche-sized factory grew to become a thriving vertical business, weaving and co-producing high quality fabrics and products for clients such as Vivienne Westwood and MIT. Now situated in wild West Wales, the London Cloth Company has a new home in one of the last fully operational woollen mills. The steady clacking of looms echoes through the stone walls, narrating a tale of unwavering commitment and precise craftsmanship. Visitors to Elvet Woollen Mill step back into the industrial age. Some of the looms have been working since 1904. You'll find Harris dressed in his boilersuit knotting, fixing, welding, shipping cloth off to Japan, and weaving Welsh blankets, in Wales, the traditional way.
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