THE WORLD WOOL FORUM
Rome, October 4, 2025
THE WORLD WOOL FORUM brings together international leaders in the design, fashion, interior and textile fields as well as farmers, thinkers and innovators doing inspiring work. The intention of this 1-day conference is to provide a platform for sharing, exchange and collaboration, forecasting the future of wool fibres while preserving sheep husbandry, animal welfare and craft heritage. The conference is hosted by Isabella Rossellini, Li Edelkoort and Ilaria Venturini Fendi in partnership with Philip Fimmano, the World Hope Forum, and international industry supporters. This inspiring in-person event has limited availability of 40 seats, so book early to avoid disappointment!
OUR SPECIAL VENUE: I CASALI DEL PINO, ROME
It is often said that if you are lucky, one day you will find your own special place of the soul. Ilaria Venturini Fendi considers herself very lucky, not only because of the name she proudly bears, celebrated all over the world as a synonym of style and quality, but also because she found her special place a few kilometres from home, over the hills of I Casali del Pino. As a designer at her family’s firm she was enjoying a successful and rewarding career. But when she came across I Casali del Pino, forgotten memories of her instinctive relationship with nature were recalled from childhood. It was in 2004 that she radically changed her lifestyle, leaving fashion for organic farming. Immediately after buying the farm, she started with great determination and perseverance its conversion to organic. A careful study of the area’s morphology and climate provided the guidelines for the conservative restoration of various rural buildings, many of which were in ruins. There, seasons change no longer according to fashion collections, but rather to the cycles of nature. Of the farm, she says “To have my own piece of land and spend more time in the countryside has always been my secret dream… Also as a designer, I find this place inspiring and perfectly harmonised with my two souls, one that feeds on creativity and the other longing for a close contact with nature”.
CONFERENCE HOSTS:
Isabella Rossellini is an Italian actress, model and farmer. She is noted for her successful tenure as a Lancôme model and an established career in American and European cinema. In 2013, she co-founded Mama Farm in Belport, NY, to foster the next generation of environmental stewards. In 2019, she graduated from Hunter College with a Master’s Degree in Animal Behaviour.
Li Edelkoort is a trend forecaster, 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
Ilaria Venturini Fendi formerly served as Accessories Creative Director of Fendissime and was Shoe Designer at Fendi. In 2003, she changed her life and became an organic farmer. Since 2006, she reuses reclaimed materials through her sustainable brand Carmina Campus.
NEW SESSION ADDED!
1-DAY PROGRAMME*
Saturday, October 4th
9:30 Welcome & registration
10:00 Introduction by Philip Fimmano
10:05 Keynote by Li Edelkoort
10:45 Oyuna Tserendorj — cashmere
11:15 Kavita Parmar — wool
11:45 Pascale Gatzen — wool
12:15 Keynote by Isabella Rossellini
13:00 Lunch + Meet & touch
14:30 Lindsay Girvan & Ben Cadell — wool
15:00 Reina Ovinge — wool, alpaca & mohair
15:30 Blatnaid Gallagher — wool
16:00 Frances van Hasselt — mohair
16:30 Daniel Harris — wool
17:00 Cynthia Hathaway — wool
17:30 End of programme
* The programme is subject to minor changes
GENERAL ADMISSION TICKETS INCLUDE:
— 1 ticket to the 1-day conference
— Italian boxed lunch
VIP PASSES INCLUDE:
— 1 ticket to the 1-day conference
— Private lunch with the speakers & hosts
PRICES:
€325 — General Admission
€450 — VIP Pass (including private lunch with speakers & hosts)
Due to the small nature of organizing this live event, tickets are non-refundable but can be transferred to a different attendee name in the case you cannot attend.
ACCOMMODATION
Attendees are requested to book their own travel arrangements and accommodation. A small number of hotel rooms are available at the venue; please email philip@edelkoort.com to be placed on a waiting list. Alternatively, 5-star accommodation is available nearby at the Rome Cavalieri, a Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES & PRESS INTERVIEWS:
Please contact philip@edelkoort.com for more information
SPEAKERS
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 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 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 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.
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 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.
Frances van Hasselt is a designer and entrepreneur focusing on developing mohair textiles locally. In 2017, she established FRANCES V.H Mohair, a women-led textile studio based in the Karoo, South Africa. Raised on a mohair farm in the Karoo desert, van Hasselt has a deep affinity for this natural fibre. She collaborates with a team of women artisans, weaving a story about the origins of textiles, simultaneously allowing the natural environment to inform every aspect of their design and making process. Mohair is an ancient and sustainable natural fibre. South Africa, and specifically the Karoo desert, is home to Angora goat farming and produces the world’s largest supply of mohair. And yet, some 80% of mohair is exported in raw form with little done locally to beneficiate and celebrate its unique qualities. Working purely with mohair, FRANCES V.H Mohair is one of the only textile studios developing a variety of products informed by the full life cycle of Angora goats and the environment to create work that allows for the raw material to define the final piece. To acquire knowledge and technical insight into ways to work with mohair, van Hasselt spent time abroad in various textile centres (most notably, residencies in Japan and Italy). Her role in creating an inclusive, sustainable supply chain specifically adapted to the ecosystem of the South African textile industry earned her a Mandela Washington Fellowship. Their work for Kate Otten Architects, ‘Threads’ was on show at the 2023 Venice Biennale. Van Hasselt traces the steps of textiles back to their roots; Fabrics that start with rainfall, the land, the importance of happy, healthy animals in order to produce quality mohair, the care of a herdsman, the quality of water and the communities that nurture fabrics into form.
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.
Elettra Wiedemann is responsible for all things programming at Mama Farm in Belport, NY, including classes and workshops for all ages, as well as retreats. Through her varied professional experiences in fashion, food and entrepreneurialism, she brings together talented artists and educators to create Mama Farm’s unique offerings. Wiedemann is a dedicated yoga student since she was 15-years old and has been meditating regularly for many years. She loves to offer those practices to the Mama Farm community with a wide range of teachers from all walks of life. After working as a fashion model for 12-years, Wiedemann dedicated much of her education and career to sustainability and food. Wiedemann holds a Masters of Science from The London School of Economics in Biomedicine, where her focus was global food policy and food technology. She is an entrepreneur (Impatient Foodie&Goodness Pop-Up) and a cookbook author (Impatient Foodie, Scribner, 2017).
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.
HOSTS
Isabella Rossellini is an Italian actress, model and farmer. She is noted for her successful tenure as a Lancôme model and an established career in American and European cinema. In 2013, she co-founded Mama Farm in Brookhaven, NY, to foster the next generation of environmental stewards. Mama Farm’s mission to promote conservation and biodiversity extends to Rossellini's herd of sheep, all of which are heritage (endangered) breeds. The sheep at Mama Farm are the foundation for its educational programming about wool creation from sheep-to-spool, which is available to the public, students and fashion universities. The farm also offers knitting workshops and creates its own wool collections and accessories. In 2019, Rossellini graduated from Hunter College with a Master’s Degree in Animal Behaviour.
@isabellarossellini mamafarm.us
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 is a trend analyst and consultant at Trend Union, working in publishing and strategic studies for global brands in fashion, textiles, interiors, luxury and lifestyle. In the A&D sector, he has consulted for Mohawk, Tarkett, Interface, Rubelli and Obeetee, while in hospitality, clients include Belmond and Singita Private Game Reserves. As a design curator, he has created exhibitions for prominent international museums and biennales. In 2011, Fimmano co-founded Talking Textiles with Lidewij Edelkoort; an ongoing initiative to promote awareness and innovation in textiles through touring exhibitions, an annual publication, a design prize and educational programmes. 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 monthly online platform that inspires change through hope
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@worldhopeforum @philipfimmano