The Vogue Business 2025 100 Innovators: Entrepreneurs and Founders

This article is part of the Vogue Business 100 Innovators: Class of 2025, an annual list of individuals Vogue Business editors believe have the potential to change the luxury industry for the better.

When the luxury industry is in such a lull — grappling with declining consumer demand and a diminished creative pulse — it needs new thinkers to reset and charge ahead.

That’s where the Vogue Business 100 Innovators 2025 class of entrepreneurs and founders come in. These are the people keeping fashion fun, fresh and exciting, whether it’s through a new spin on vintage shopping, a platform that changes the way we interact with influencers, a designer label offering actually interesting clothing, or a creative role that infiltrates a legacy company not so known for its fashion accolades.

There’s plenty to be down about in fashion right now. These innovators give us a place to channel our hope and optimism for what the future might look like.

Founder | Not/Applicable Vintage

Originally a menswear buyer at British retail behemoths Harvey Nichols and Selfridges, Natasha Advani founded Not/Applicable Vintage in 2016 after relocating to Los Angeles and becoming inspired by the city’s flea markets, where she would often spot well-known fashion designers rifling through the racks. She realised then that there was an opportunity for vintage collectable fashion, if only it was presented in the same spaces as luxury. Starting off with a small collection of rare vintage band T-shirts and a pop-up in Selfridges, Advani has grown Not/Applicable into a fully fledged brand that spans music tour merchandise, limited-edition collaborations and other carefully sourced pieces that range between £300 and £4,000, depending on rarity and condition.

Today, the company has expanded its operations to serve global retailers including Dover Street Market, H Lorenzo and Selfridges, as well as collaborations with artists based in LA, London and Tokyo. Sales increased by 65 per cent from 2023 to 2024, with a projected 20 per cent growth in 2025, largely fuelled by exclusive partnerships and limited-edition tie-ups, including a sold-out Grimes Coachella 2024 collection.

Beyond her entrepreneurial success, Advani is committed to exploring how vintage fashion can offer a sustainable alternative to the environmental impact of mass production — while helping her customers’ wardrobes stand out, of course.

Founder and designer | Colleen Allen

If you’ve opened the pages of W or T Magazine as of late, or spied indie fashion darlings from Mikey Madison to Addison Rae on the red carpet, chances are you’ve seen Colleen Allen’s designs. The Row alum founded her eponymous brand in 2024 and has since catapulted to the centre of the fashion sphere, known for her immaculately crafted pieces — some tailored and clasped, others sheer and flowy, cinched and gathered in all the right places.

Trained in menswear, Allen is cultivating a new approach to crafting women’s garments. She starts at the interior, ensuring the construction is solid, before moving to the outside of the garment — an approach she learnt working in menswear. She’s taking a similar approach to brand-building: intricate, careful and slow. After launching with Ssense, the brand is now stocked in a select few boutiques, and her latest collection is available direct-to-consumer on her website as well as via Moda Operandi. She’s slowly branching out from indie magazines to international Vogues and The Sunday Times Style. Allen offers a blueprint for how to launch — and carefully grow — an independent brand in the 2020s.

Founder | Ashluxe and Ashluxury

Nigeria’s Ashluxe, founded by Yinka Ash in 2019, is making waves on and off the continent. The Lagos-based streetwear brand has been worn by artists including Nigerian musician Davido and Colombian singer Maluma. In June, Ashluxe expanded into the UK, which has become a key market. Ashluxe is the private label spun out of Ashluxury, the multi-brand luxury retail store Ash founded in Lagos in 2015, which also stocks international labels such as Ottolinger, Casablanca and Coperni. The store was recently refurbished in an effort to transform the space into a lavish boutique that mirrors the luxury shopping experience found in Paris or New York. It has grown from 10 square metres to 120 square metres, creating a luxury hub for Nigerians to shop from over 100 local and international brands. Through Ashluxe and Ashluxury, Ash is introducing new brands into Nigeria while promoting Nigerian streetwear internationally.

Co-founders | August Barron

Benjamin Barron launched August Barron (formerly known as All-In) as a magazine in 2015, and met his partner in life and work Bror August Vestbø upon the launch of the first issue. The duo started making garments for All-In editorials, but over the last decade they have gradually built one of the buzziest emerging brands in fashion. As well as being finalists for this year’s LVMH Prize, their shows are styled by mega-stylist Lotta Volkova (known for her work at Balenciaga and Miu Miu) and sales are up 167 per cent year-on-year for SS25.

Despite the brand’s outsized cultural influence, August Barron shows just once a year, and continues to upcycle portions of its collections as it scales, working with deadstock from factories in Paris. The duo bring a new, eclectic aesthetic to luxury that feels modern, inclusive and fresh.

Co-founders | Women’s History Month

Women’s History Museum is an experimental fashion label founded in 2015 by Mattie Barringer and Amanda McGowan. Inspired by their eclectic shared wardrobe, the self-taught duo made their debut off-schedule during New York Fashion Week in 2014, and have become two of New York’s most exciting young designers.

In 2022, in the face of an increasingly challenging retail climate, the duo cleverly opened a vintage store in New York’s Chinatown, which now offsets the cost of sampling and producing runway shows. Alongside their fashion practice, the pair have also staged mixed-media art shows — which incorporate sculpture, painting, drawing, film and performance — in galleries around the world, including at Company Gallery in New York, Berlin’s Centre for Contemporary Arts and the Luma Westbau Foundation in Zurich.

Co-founders | Resee

American fashion editors Sofia Bernardin and Sabrina Marshall shared an obsession with two things: iconic fashion pieces and keeping them in circulation. Thus the Resee platform was born in 2013, while the two were living in Paris, offering pre-loved luxury through the curated lens of a magazine and against the standards of a seasoned collector. While secondhand wasn’t so sexy over a decade ago, Bernardin and Marshall were early to the vintage game with an editorialised point of view; a perspective that has since gained the attention of fashion houses and cultural figures. In 2022, Sex and the City and Emily in Paris creator Darren Star invested in the French retail site. A year later, Maison Alaïa collaborated with the platform on the sale of select archival pieces, while artist Cindy Sherman entrusted Resee with her personal wardrobe as part of a charity fundraiser. With a global online client base and ‘salons’ in both Paris and New York, Resee has resonated beyond industry circles. Today, what the duo launched out of love, stands at the forefront of new luxury.

Agent | United Talent Agency

James Boulter operates at the juncture of culture and commerce. Appointed as the first Europe-based agent at talent agency United Talent Agency, he helps shape how the masses engage with celebrities and brands on the global stage. In translating cultural influence into commercial impact, Boulter has spearheaded some of the agency’s landmark deals, including Cynthia Erivo’s global campaign with Mulberry and Priyanka Chopra Jonas’s renewed global ambassadorship at Bvlgari. (Chopra Jonas has worked with Boulter for six years.)

During his career, Boulter has been responsible for securing more than $200 million in commercial and endorsement opportunities — all while helping clients launch brands of their own. He also sat on the advisory board of the British Fashion Council from 2020 to 2022, and is on the strategic development committee at Fashion Trust Arabia.

Founder and CEO | Cult Mia

At a time when multi-brand retail is under pressure, Cult Mia’s curated model is thriving. Founded by Nina Briance, Cult Mia is an independent luxury marketplace that champions emerging and independent designers from across the world, many of whom have never partnered with a retailer before.

Briance, the brand’s CEO, is a Stanford University graduate and London Business School MBA alum who started her career in investment banking before launching the startup. Cult Mia’s model supports small-batch, made-to-order and artisanal collections, offering a scalable route to market without compromising on craft. It raised £4.5 million in seed funding in October 2024, with H&M Group Ventures joining existing investors: Morgan Stanley, Fuel Ventures and David Wertheimer of the Chanel family.

Founder | Care of Chan

The fashion-food crossover evolved to new heights in 2025, and Care of Chan is the agency behind many of the brand events that blended the two. Founder Sue Chan created the “hospitality forward experiential agency” back in 2016 as a culinary PR agency, and in 2022, evolved the concept into the production agency it functions as today after recognising the rise of mainstream foodie culture. Chan clocked early that fashion would pick up on food culture as a way to market and communicate to consumers (as it has with sports and music), building Care of Chan around this concept. Most notably this year, Chan has worked closely with J Crew on a series of events, including its brand trip to Puglia, as well as for Uniqlo on its Studio Ghibli collaboration.

Co-founder and designers | Oscar Ouyang

As the newest name on the British Fashion Council’s (BFC) Newgen schedule announced in May, Oscar Ouyang is flying the flag for the next generation of Chinese brands in London. Behind the buzzy young brand is a duo comprising Oscar Ouyang and Yibo Chen. Ouyang, who hails from Beijing, completed a BA in fashion design with knitwear in 2020 at Central Saint Martins, followed by an MA in fashion with a knitwear specialisation in 2023. Since graduating, he has built a practice rooted in material storytelling with Chen, who graduated from the Royal College of Arts with an MA in fashion womenswear. Oscar Ouyang focuses on gender-neutral fashion and knitwear, with a particular emphasis on slow, sustainable knitwear and textile practices. Drawing inspiration from militarywear, nature and edgy street style, it’s a unique aesthetic that offers a fresh take on traditional craftsmanship — and rails against decorative menswear. The brand’s debut collection is stocked by Dover Street Market globally.

Co-founder and co-CEO | Mercury13

It’s no secret that female sports fans are just as passionate about their teams as their male counterparts. But Victoire Cogevina Reynal — a former fashion and editorial assistant — didn’t see this reality reflected in the market, be it in how sports market themselves to women, or in the merchandise available to buy. This realisation led her into the world of sports, and in 2023 she founded Mercury13 with the goal of changing that, by unlocking the power of women’s sports teams — and their fans.

Mercury13 is an investment group in women’s football clubs; its first acquisition was FC Como Women. Its goal is to rebrand football clubs in a way that makes them feel more like they’re for women, by women, and so far, the company has inked partnerships with brands like Nike and redesigned jerseys to make that possible. With sights set on more acquisitions, Reynal is not only reshaping what women’s football looks like, but fashion’s role within it.

Co-founders | Matière Noire

When luxury superagency The Independents launched L’Incubateur, a programme spearheaded by creative chair and Bureau Betak founder Alexandre de Betak “to identify, mentor and accelerate the next generation of talent”, Matière Noire was selected as the first beneficiary.

Felix Ward and Pierre Dagba started working together in 2018, and formally created their spatial and lighting design firm in 2022. (They were joined by Jules Gorget who left in 2023). For the Paris-based company that works in fashion, music and art, lighting is integrated into design from the outset, without feeling like an afterthought.

Matière Noire, whose clients include Y3, Hermès and Courrèges (remember the show with the smoke, the one with the ‘Ocean Drum’ set, or AW25’s confetti storm?), employs a dozen people today including architects, designers and engineers. While they admit that budgets have gone down amid the luxury downturn, as fashion shows become less about monumental sets and spectacles, client briefs still demand creativity. There are still plenty of projects to keep the company on a growth trajectory. Just this autumn, they are working on H&M’s blockbuster show during London Fashion Week, the redoing of London nightclub Drumsheds’s stage and lighting, the Courrèges show in Paris, as well as an installation for the opening of Fondation Cartier on Place du Palais-Royal. “I believe they are the most innovative in the world for their approach in spatial and lighting design, taking experiential design for production to new heights,” Betak tells Vogue Business.

Founder | EYC Ltd

Since 2018, Cora Delaney has built EYC Ltd into one of London’s most culturally plugged-in creative agencies, known for its meaningful, culture-led partnerships that bridge global musicians, luxury fashion and youth-driven communities. With an abundance of celebrity connections, from Central Cee to Odell Beckham Jr, Delaney has positioned EYC as the go-to for brands seeking campaigns that resonate far beyond launch. This year alone, her influencer-led campaign for H&M generated nearly 36 million views, she helped secure Cardi B’s front row placement at the Margiela SS26 show, and cast Amelia Gray in global campaigns for Puma.

Her team — predominantly Gen Z women — manages a roster of talent and delivers end-to-end influencer campaigns as extensions of in-house brand teams. EYC also runs a full production arm, from ideating and concepting activations and parties through, to producing them and curating the guest list. Clients include Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Fendi, skincare disruptor Topicals, Joe the Juice and Beats by Dre.

Delaney’s instincts also extend to product innovation. In 2025, she launched Badwater Tequila, a clean, flavour-forward canned cocktail designed for fashion-adjacent gatherings and cultural moments, leveraging the same networks and cultural fluency that power her campaigns. Already, it’s partnered with Mains, Dover Street Market and Asos, positioning itself as a next-gen alcohol brand.

Founder and designer

Torishéju Dumi is a British Nigerian Brazilian fashion designer and founder of her eponymous label Torishéju, which launched at Paris Fashion Week for SS24. Having studied fashion MA at Central Saint Martins, Dumi cut her teeth at Phillip Lim, Phoebe Philo’s Celine and Ann Demeulemeester before striking out on her own and launching her label, which creates feminine tailoring from deadstock and vintage garments.

Since her Paris debut, Dumi has been stocked exclusively at Dover Street Market. Her pieces have been worn by the likes of Zendaya. And in September 2025, she won the LVMH Savoir-Faire Prize. Dumi is committed to responsible growth, showing once per year in September, and in order to continue her journey, she’s received support from Tod s Group CEO Diego Della Valle and the Virgil Abloh Foundation.

CEO | Vinted Marketplace

Five years ago, Vinted was just a fledgling player on the sidelines of the British secondhand fashion market. Now, walk into any UK post office and you’ll likely encounter at least one person dropping off or picking up a Vinted parcel. Over the past year, Vinted CEO Adam Jay has focused on cementing resale in the mainstream. Vinted is now operational in 23 markets (most recently Greece, Croatia and Ireland), and has extended beyond fashion to include homeware, kidswear and electronics.

In March, Jay spearheaded Vinted’s first physical event to mark its push into luxury. The invitation-only ‘House of Vinted’ featured five themed rooms, each filled to the rafters with pre-loved luxury curated by content creators, sourced on Vinted and from the creators’ personal closets. The broader mission, he says, is to “make secondhand first choice” and “enable the selling of everything by everyone”. Judging by the company’s financial growth, this plan is working. In 2024, revenue increased 36 per cent year-on-year and net profits were up 330 per cent. Now, Jay is intent on paying it forward with Vinted Ventures, the company’s new investment arm designed to support the next generation of re-commerce founders.

Co-founders | Fabrique

Natalie Wang and Lin Jin are redefining Chinese fashion with a global, collaborative vision. Their self-styled “social fashion brand” Fabrique functions as a collective, creating exclusive, limited-edition collections by partnering with over 300 local and international designers, such as Jacques Wi, Caroline Hu, Roksanda, Hussein Chalayan and Damir Doma. By leveraging the high efficiency of China’s supply chain, Fabrique can produce limited-edition, small-batch designer collaborations with agility, reducing overproduction and excess inventory. Its direct-to-consumer, community-driven platform further optimises demand forecasting, and empowers independent designers to create craft-oriented collections — aligning with the global shift toward “buy less, buy better”. And to prove the concept can scale, Wang and Lin are gearing up to open a Fabrique flagship in Beijing’s Sanlitun Taikoo.

Founder and CEO | Industrie Africa

Fashion e-commerce options are sparse in Africa. But one entrepreneur transforming online retail is Nisha Kanabar, founder and CEO of fashion platform Industrie Africa, which launched in 2018 with the aim of spotlighting top African designers and connecting them with a global audience. Whether consumers are in New York or London, Industrie Africa — which operates on a drop-shipping model — remains dedicated to helping designers sell their garments internationally.

The platform features some of Africa’s buzziest designers, including Nigeria’s Dye Labs, Ghana’s Christie Brown and Senegal’s Tongoro. In July, Industrie Africa launched its latest initiative to bolster retail across the continent by leveraging Africa’s growing luxury hospitality sector. It partnered with Bawe Island, a luxury resort on a private island in Tanzania, to open a luxury boutique called Sola. Located within the resort, this new retail space aims to connect high-spending consumers with luxury and contemporary African brands. This marks the first step in Kanabar’s plan to revolutionise Africa’s retail landscape, with intentions to launch further retail outlets across the continent.

Founder | Terminal 9 Studios

Playing at the intersection of fashion and entertainment, Terminal 9 Studios is a documentary production company specialising in long-form storytelling. Behind the studio is Claude Lacaze, who founded Terminal 9 in 2013 and has since established the company as frontrunner in engaging audiences in the streaming era. The studio’s flagship series, Inside the Dream, offers access to the stories behind various fashion houses, from Bvlgari to Dior to Mugler.

The studio premiered its latest docuseries ICON(s) at the Shanghai International Film Festival in June, which follows leading contemporary artists as they reinterpret luxury icons, such as visionary Refik Anadol’s reimagining of Bvlgari’s Serpenti collection using AI. Terminal 9 was acquired by global communications group The Independents in May, helping to strengthen its reach and creative network. Currently, Lacaze and his team are busy working on the next slate of episodes for both Inside the Dream and ICON(s), alongside a brand-new documentary series.

Founder | Labelhood

With her Labelhood incubator, store and fashion week showcase, Tasha Liu has changed the global face of Chinese fashion over the past decade — and its influence is only growing. Born in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, Liu cut her teeth working at marketing and PR agency Ogilvy before co-founding a store called Dong Liang in Beijing in 2009, followed by a Shanghai outpost in 2011. It sold fashion and accessories from independent Chinese designers and brands such as Uma Wang, Renli Su and Shushu/Tong, many of whom were emerging into a dynamic and nascent domestic fashion industry. Dong Liang acted as a lynchpin at the time, which over the years evolved into the showcasing platform and incubator service Labelhood. Since then, Labelhood has expanded to six locations, most recently opening a store in the Nanshan district of Shenzhen at the start of 2025. Liu also unveiled an immersive pop-up at London department store Harrods in January, to celebrate the Lunar New Year. With these latest moves, she has cemented her global reputation as a patron of Chinese designers.

Co-founder and president | ShopMy

Co-founder and CEO | ShopMy

Co-founder and chief business development officer | ShopMy

As the creator economy evolves beyond traditional influencing, affiliate has become a key revenue stream for creators. And affiliate platform ShopMy — founded by Tiffany Lopinsky, Harry Rein and Chris Tinsley in 2020 — has disrupted the landscape as a centralised place for brands to partner with creators and track affiliate progress, previously a major challenge for marketers. With 50,000 partner brands, ShopMy has quickly become an important player, and has already driven more than £350 million in sales for its brand partners via ShopMy creators. The platform raised $77.5 million in series B funding this year, with a valuation of £410 million.

Founder | Huxley

Anna Meacham, originally from Manchester in the North of England, founded talent and publicity disruptor Huxley in 2018, with the aim of helping artists realise creative projects outside of the studio and beyond the stage. Huxley represents artists including Björk, Frank Ocean, Charli XCX and The 1975, working on everything from Frank Ocean’s jewellery brand to publicity for the Brat tour. In recent years, Meacham has expanded Huxley’s purview to represent some of fashion’s brightest creative talents, including designers Francesco Risso. Last year, she opened a creative management division, which works with several labels including Asics, 66North and Skepta’s Mains on events and PR. As a female founder in two male-dominated industries, she’s forging a unique path.

Founder | Ruohan

At 26, Ruohan Nie has already established her brand as a darling of the Chinese fashion scene, with a growing number of accolades. In March, Nie won the inaugural Sustasia Fashion Prize at Shanghai Fashion Week, which challenges designers to work with new material innovations (Nie explored ways to work with organic satin, hand-linking 1,200 overlocked squares of the fabric to create a garment). She was selected as one of Fashion Asia’s 10 Asian Designers to Watch in 2024, the same year she was named a finalist for the Andam Fashion Award, alongside the likes of Meryll Rogge and Christopher Esber.

Tianjin-born Nie started out as a trained classical musician who moved into fashion, graduating from Parsons School of Design in 2020 a year before she launched her luxury womenswear brand, which has gained a name for its minimalist aesthetic and high-quality fabrics. Ruohan is stocked by over 100 retailers around the world, including Lane Crawford, Galeries Lafayette, Isetan and Ssense, as well as an extensive retail network in China. Nie’s confident runway shows in Paris (where she has been on the schedule since SS23) point to a maturity beyond her years and mark her out as a Chinese brand with global appeal.

Founder and designer

Steve O Smith isn’t interested in wholesale. The 2025 LVMH Prize finalist’s collections are all made to order: “The idea is that my designs are drawings and I like to imagine each of my clients as drawings,” he says. “That way we can also control the value of each garment.”

Smith’s creations start at £10,000, with the highest price so far at £20,000, while those who make significant orders get a drawing of the garment as well, further reinforcing the idea of Smith’s work as collectable. This summer, the Victoria and Albert Museum acquired one of his dresses and since then, the designer has been hard at work fulfilling the waiting list of requests that came in as a result.

Though that isn’t the only thing keeping the Rhode Island School of Design and CSM graduate busy. Last week, Smith was awarded the Karl Lagerfeld prize at the LVMH Prize final, a competition that the finalists spend months on each year. He has also been operating showrooms during the ready-to-wear seasons, but following this fashion month, he says he will move towards a couture schedule.

Founder and creative director | Iamisigo

Nigerian designer Bubu Ogisi launched Iamisigo, an artisanal “wearable art” brand, in 2009 as an independent label, later updating the visual identity branding in 2013 after graduating from Paris’s École Supérieure des Arts et Techniques de la Mode. The Lagos-based label is known for its sculptural and avant-garde collections, which showcase the scope and versatility of ‘Made in Africa’. Since its inception, Ogisi has developed a mapping system of creativity and craftsmanship across the continent, travelling to various African nations and collaborating with local artisans — for example, she works with beaders in Kenya and traditional dyers in Nigeria. Her commitment to “decolonising” the fashion industry is her driving force, she says, as she brings her fashion to the international stage. In January, her innovation earned her Zalando’s 2025 Visionary Award, securing Ogisi a place on the official Copenhagen Fashion Week schedule and financial support of €85,000. Prior to that, the designer was one of four to create a one-off collection for Victoria’s Secret’s film, The Victoria’s Secret World Tour, in 2023. Iamsigo has cultivated a small cult following and has been worn by notable figures from Naomi Campbell to Nigerian musician Tiwa Savage.

Founder and creative director | Orange Culture

Adebayo Oke-Lawal, founder and creative director of Orange Culture, has spent over a decade developing his fashion brand in Nigeria. Known for its experimental designs and bold colour palettes, Orange Culture has become a household name in Nigeria and a regular on the Lagos Fashion Week schedule. Three years after its 2011 launch, Oke-Lawal was a finalist for the prestigious LVMH Prize, which propelled Orange Culture onto the global stage. Since then, he has been expanding the brand’s presence abroad, showcasing his collections in cities such as London and New York. He has also dressed celebrities including actors Ncuti Gatwa and Brian Tyree Henry, the latter of whom wore custom Orange Culture at 2025 Met Gala. In July, Oke-Lawal made his Berlin Fashion Week debut, supported by the Fashion Council Germany. He was among four international designers awarded €25,000 to showcase their SS26 collections in the German capital. As part of his commitment to international growth, the young designer now divides his time between London and Lagos, in a bid to connect with buyers, press, new consumers and the wider diaspora.

CEO | Dubai Watch Week

Hind Seddiqi has redefined Dubai’s place on the horological map. In 2015, she created Dubai Watch Week, a non-commercial platform that has since grown into one of the most important biennial events in the global watch industry. By uniting collectors, creators and brands around education and dialogue rather than sales, Seddiqi has shifted the conversation in an industry that often prioritises exclusivity over inclusivity. Dubai Watch Week won the Special Jury Prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève in 2021, and the following year Seddiqi became the first Middle Eastern woman to sit on the jury — cementing her role as both pioneer and tastemaker.

She is responsible for steering the marketing and communications strategies across all business units of Seddiqi Holding, the family-owned company that represents over 100 luxury watch and jewellery brands in the Middle East, and operates Ahmed Seddiqi, the region’s leading retailer of fine timepieces and jewellery. Seddiqi has been instrumental in pushing her family business towards digital transformation, leading omnichannel initiatives and customer experience strategies while laying the groundwork for the group’s ESG roadmap. As a board member of the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy, she is helping to shape the city’s vision to become a global hub for tech-driven business.

Fashion editor | NFL

In 2024, Kyle Smith took a week off from his job working on marketing, social media and experiential projects at the NFL to take two players to Paris Fashion Week for the SS25 menswear shows. While there, both Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow and Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson walked in the Paris edition of Vogue World. Upon return, Smith slipped a note under his boss’s door, detailing the media impact value (MIV) of the fashion appearances, while requesting a new title and salary. He’s now the first-ever fashion editor for the NFL.

In the role, Smith helps to run the official NFL and NFL Style Instagram accounts, styles players for tunnel walks and photo shoots, and works with agents to establish relationships between athletes and fashion houses. In the role, Smith will continue to steer the NFL’s “helmets off” strategy, a play to better connect players with audiences off the field — in Smith’s case, through fashion.

Founder | The Equity Studio

Less than 3 per cent of venture capital goes to female founders, with one of the main barriers being a lack of female investors. In 2023, Anna Sweeting founded an investment fund, The Equity Studio, to back (predominantly female-led) next-gen beauty and wellness brands. Sweeting is a seasoned entrepreneur and investor who began her career as a chartered accountant before rising to C-suite roles in the consumer sector. Prior to founding The Equity Studio, she co-founded Vaultier7, the UK’s first female-led specialist investment fund that backed the likes of Gisou, Vestiaire Collective and 111Skin.

Since launching The Equity Studio, Sweeting has invested in Trip, a UK-based wellness drinks brand. In 2024, model and entrepreneur Rosie Huntington-Whiteley joined The Equity Studio, bringing her expertise in creative insights, social media curation and strategic partnerships. Beyond investment, the firm created The Studio collective this year to connect founders with creative talent, agencies and other influential partners.

President and chief designer | Hidesign

While the rest of us have sweated, huffed and groaned our way through this unseasonably stifling summer — and wondered how on earth we’re going to dress for the intensifying climate crisis — Hideo Yoshii has been busy suggesting solutions. The mastermind behind Hidesign (pronounced “hide-sign”), Yoshii founded the Tokyo-based company in 2005 to provide site-appropriate uniforms for industry workers in everything from fast food to aviation, and in recent seasons has branched out into publicly available ready-to-wear. In a bid to reach a wider audience, the brand showed its cutting-edge clothing outside of Japan for the first time this year at Pitti Uomo’s 107th trade show in January.

Innovations announced by the company in 2025 include version two of its Air-Flow Wear series (cooling clothing equipped with the world’s most compact electric fans) and Temp Tune, a fabric developed in collaboration with Sumitomo Chemical, which absorbs extreme heat and releases it as extreme cold by incorporating a temperature-regulating material known as ‘conformer’ into innerwear — a world first. As Yoshii himself put it at the brand’s AW25 Tokyo Fashion Week presentation in March: “We would like to prepare humanity for the future to come.”

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