Festival of Fashion 2026 Speakers

Leonie Bell is Director of V&A Dundee, Scotland’s design museum, and part of the V&A family of museums. Leading V&A Dundee from its spectacular home on Dundee’s reimagined waterfront, Bell champions Scotland as a creative powerhouse locally, nationally and internationally, delivering the museum’s vision to inspire and empower through design and bringing design to life for all of us. Bell is an Honorary Professor of Design at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee, a Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellow, a trustee with Eden Project and has held a range of leadership roles in Scotland’s culture sector.

Tamara Cincik is founder and CEO of Fashion Roundtable and the only fashion Fellow of The King’s Foundation. She brings over 20 years’ experience in the fashion industry as a fashion editor and brand consultant, alongside time working in Parliament on creative, cultural and inclusion policy. A UCL graduate, she worked internationally as a stylist and editor from the late nineties, contributing to titles including Vogue and i-D. Her career has also included roles as a professor and non-executive director. Tamara’s work is rooted in a deep understanding of materiality: how cloth is made, what it is made from, and what it carries. She is a passionate advocate for natural fibres, and particularly British wool as a renewable, regenerative and culturally rich material. Under her direction, Fashion Roundtable developed and launched The Great British Wool Revival in partnership with The King’s Foundation. Through Fashion Roundtable, which acts as Secretariat to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion, Tamara works to ensure that fashion and textiles have a strong, informed voice in Westminster and beyond.

Image: Dvora Photography

Lynne Coleman is an author, textile historian and broadcaster with two decades of experience across the British textile and luxury industries. Her work centres on Scottish textiles, British knitwear and the craftsmanship, people and places behind them. She has authored four books, including Cashmere: A Guide to Scottish Luxury and How Scotland Dressed the World, with a fifth currently in progress. For a decade, she was Brand Guardian for DC Dalgliesh, one of Scotland’s oldest artisan tartan mills. In 2024, Lynne founded L Y N N E, a British luxury knitwear brand working with specialist mills and artisans across Scotland and the British Isles. The collection brings together Scottish cashmere, Fair Isle and Guernsey knitwear, made in the places where these traditions originated.

Oriole Cullen is a Senior Curator of Fashion and Textiles at the Victoria and Albert Museum where she is currently leading the curatorial redevelopment of the forthcoming Fashion Gallery. A graduate of the Courtauld Institute and previously a curator at the Museum of London, she has published and lectured widely on the subject of fashion. Her past exhibitions include Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams (V&A, 2019) and Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto. (V&A, 2023) and most recently, with co-curator Connie Karol Burks, The Burberry Trench: Crafting an Icon (V&A, 2026).

Community, craftsmanship and culture lie at the heart of Nicholas Daly’s work. Having graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2013, the London-based designer with Jamaican Scottish roots, launched his eponymous brand in 2015. His practice intertwines personal narrative with wider black British and diasporic themes, incorporating tradition, authenticity and diversity.

Incorporating bespoke textiles and complex finishes into every collection. The label partners with a range of artisan makers in the UK and beyond to infuse garments with nuance and depth, expanding its sustainable systems through ethical sourcing and innovative repurposing.

Nicholas has been supported by the British Fashion Council’s Newgen Designer Programme, showcasing his collections during London Fashion Week. He was the recipient of the 2019 International Woolmark Prize Semi-Final award, an LVMH Prize Finalist Winner in 2020, a BFC x GG Designer Menswear Fund Finalist in 2021 and was awarded the BFC Fashion Trust Award in the same year. In 2022, Nicholas won the BFC x GG Designer Fashion Fund. In the same year he became a BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund Finalist and was announced as a true reflection of outstanding talent in the UK. A year later, Nicholas Daley was nominated for New Established Menswear Designer of the Year in 2023, at the British Fashion Council Awards

Carly Eck is Curator of Brand Archive & Heritage at Burberry, serving as the expert voice on the brand’s storied history. A respected scholar in fashion history, published author and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, her expertise spans both the museum and corporate archive worlds. For over a decade, she has played a pivotal role in building, integrating and leveraging the Burberry archive into the fabric of the brand. Through Eck’s leadership, the archive and the DNA of the house has become a vital source of knowledge for Burberry’s global communications, campaigns, collections and people, connecting past, present and future. Eck holds a BA from Central Saint Martins and an MA from the Royal College of Art/V&A, specialising in dress.

Image: James D. Kelly. Originally published in Ursula magazine, Issue 18, Fall 2026

Lucia is the Scottish frontwoman of Glasgow based band, Lucia & the Best Boys, who has just released her first album Picking Petals. Lucia also works as an international model, collaborating closely with brands like Valentino, Dior and was a longtime muse of Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen. Her headline tour begins this October.

Val Garland’s inimitable aesthetic, unorthodox approach, and radical creative energy makes her one of the world’s most prolific and respected makeup artists. In 2017, Garland was named L’Oreal Paris’ first ever Global Makeup Director – a role she occupied for seven years. Today, she is one of the celebrated judges of BBC’s Glow Up and author of VALidated – the must-have tome for makeup artists, fashion lovers, and industry professionals alike. With a stellar resumé that documents collaborations with some of the most celebrated fashion icons of the twenty-first century, Garland’s work runs the gamut from uber-beauty and hyper-modernity to the avant-garde and beyond; she is a ‘Makeup Artist’ in the truest sense of the word.

Image: RANKIN

Kirsty Hassard is a curator, and fashion historian with published works on Frances Farquharson, Schiaparelli, and Vivienne Westwood. As a senior curator at V&A Dundee, Scotland’s design museum, she has curated several of the museum’s leading exhibitions including Night Fever, Mary Quant, and 2026’s Catwalk: The Art of the Fashion Show. In 2023, she co-curated the museum’s critically acclaimed, and first home-grown blockbuster exhibition, Tartan. Kirsty has spoken internationally on subjects across fashion and textiles, and was a consultant and on-screen expert on BBC’s Icons of Style with Kirsty Wark.

Clare Hunter has been a community textile artist, banner maker and textile curator for over twenty years and established the award-winning community sewing enterprise NeedleWorks in Glasgow in the 1980s. Threads of Life: the History of the World through the Eye of a Needle, was her first book. It was warmly received, reaching The Sunday Times Bestseller List, chosen as Waterstone’s Book of the Month in Scotland and BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week and becoming joint winner of the Saltire Award for First Book. Her second book, Embroidering her Truth: Mary, Queen of Scots and the Language of Power, was published in March 2022, reached the Scottish Books Bestseller list and was an inspiration for Dior’s 2024 Cruise Collection in Scotland. Her third book, Making Matters: In Seach of Creative Wonders, was published in August 2025.

Tammy Kane is a distinguished British fashion creative and the co-founder of both the Christopher Kane and More Joy brands. Tammy works alongside her brother Christopher Kane, who was named Creative Director at Mulberry in Spring 2026, and her close collaboration as his key creative partner has been instrumental to the success of their work over the years.

Canadian-British, London-based designer Edeline Lee grew up in Vancouver, Canada, before moving to London and graduating from Central Saint Martins. After working at luxury labels including Zac Posen, Alexander McQueen and Christian Dior, Lee launched her own label at London Fashion Week where she is known for her immersive and performative shows. All Edeline Lee pieces are made by hand in England and are designed for the ‘Future Lady’; a multifaceted heroine of her own creation, and the driving force behind her designs. Her work has been worn by many celebrities and key figures including Olivia Colman, Cate Blanchett, the Princess of Wales, Taylor Swift, Tina Fey and Sandra Oh. This year, the brand celebrates its 15th anniversary.

Image: Mars Washington

Lydia Slater is the Editor-in-Chief of Harper’s Bazaar, leading the iconic magazine in celebrating fashion, culture and the modern career woman. During her tenure, she has launched initiatives including the Bazaar Summit conference and the magazine’s membership club Bazaar Privé, while elevating its Women of the Year Awards to a global cultural highlight. A highly respected fashion expert, Lydia sits on the British Fashion Council’s press committee, and co-authored Balenciaga: Kublin – A Fashion Record (Thames & Hudson, 2024). Prior to joining the magazine, Lydia’s career included launching The Week: Fashion, editing The Sunday Times Style magazine, and writing for The Times and The Daily Telegraph.

Mair holds the prestigious position of Fashion, Watches & Jewellery Director across both Harper’s Bazaar and Elle UK. A prominent Scottish fashion journalist, Mair is known for her sharp editorial eye and pragmatic style guidance, having spent over three decades shaping British print and digital fashion media.

“One of the most important image makers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries” – The New York Times. For nearly five decades, hair stylist Sam McKnight MBE has been at the forefront of fashion, beauty and editorial styling as one of the world’s most influential and celebrated image makers. Sam has been hailed a ‘legend’ by Vogue, having a ‘magic touch’ by supermodel and long-term collaborator and friend, Kate Moss, and celebrated as the ‘gifted one’ by the late designer Karl Lagerfeld, with whom Sam worked for many years. Sam is famous for creating some of the most iconic era-defining images of our time and for designing hair looks that everyone wants – it’s what continues to make him one of the most sought-after stylists working today.

Anna Murphy has been Fashion Director of The Times for over a decade. Her most recent book is Destination Fabulous: Finding Your Way to the Best You Yet. Murphy strongly believes that the supposedly superficial act of choosing what to put on every morning can have a profound impact not just on how we look, but how we feel. Her years of writing and research, plus her own life experiences, have also opened Murphy up to fresh thinking around beauty, diet and exercise, and – overarching all of it – the best ways to live a life that is contented and fulfilled.

Justine Picardie is the author of six books, including her highly acclaimed biographies Coco Chanel: the Legend and the Life and Miss Dior: A Story of Courage and Couture. She is a contributing editor to Harper’s Bazaar, having previously been its editor-in-chief. She was formerly a journalist for the Sunday Times, a columnist for the Telegraph, editor of the Observer Magazine, and features director of Vogue. Her new book, Fashioning the Crown, was published by Faber in February 2026.

Image: Richard Phibbs

Kirsty Wark is one of Britain’s most experienced television journalists and broadcasters. She has presented a wide range of programmes, from live stadium events to documentaries, including Icons of Style – a two-part BBC series in which she met the iconic Scottish designers, curators and makers who have shaped the fashion industry, featuring Christopher Kane, Alan Cumming, Sharleen Spiteri, Eve Graham and the late Pam Hogg. She is best known as an anchor of the BBC’s flagship news and current affairs programme Newsnight. Alongside her television work, Wark hosts BBC Radio 4’s long-running flagship series The Reunion and is a presenter on Front Row. Wark has received several major awards for her work, including BAFTA Awards for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting and Best Television Presenter. In 2025, she was awarded a BAFTA Fellowship, the British Academy’s highest honour. Wark is currently writing her third novel.