TRENDFACTORY MUNICH

Ash Allibhai is associated with The Futurist and collaborates as part of the Research and Editorial Team.

He was part of the editorial team for the Jewellery TrendBook 2022+ and has spoken at several trade shows, where he primarily speaks about the influence of fashion and youth and subcultures as well as diversity and inclusion in the creative industries.

Ash started his career working for Drapers the UK Leading Fashion Business Weekly, and Retail Jeweller. He also worked as Head of Fashion and Advertising at Gay Times and was a consulting Fashion Director of ASBO magazine, a publication giving a voice of frustrated youth from all around the globe. It brought together fresh, emerging and experimental talents by approaching fashion, music, film, art, society, politics and current global affairs.

Ash was responsible for developing the style and look of the fashion editorial pages and worked with several up-and-coming creatives giving them the opportunity to have their work published.

Internationally, Ash is a visiting lecturer and speaker at several prestigious fashion colleges such as ISDI Mumbai, The Fashion Retail Academy London FIT New York and the Jimmy Choo Academy, where he lectures on Fashion Forecasting and Fashion Styling.

Hailing from Copenhagen and an award-winning jewellery design graduate of Central Saint Martins in London, Simone Faurschou applies nearly a decade’s worth of experience working with international haute couture and jewellery houses.

Creating at the intersection of art and fine jewellery, Faurschou bridges artificial simulations and the natural by combining technology and manual goldsmithing craftsmanship.

With her latest collection “Blockchain” Simone has embraced NFTs in her artistic practice and continues her ongoing theme of human connection, linking people and jewellery pieces, only this time through the use of technology as well. By using jewellery as a medium, Simone Faurschou allows the body to play a central role in understanding the evolving relationship to technology and our daily encounter between natural and artificial. By combining the two, Simone Faurschou explores the coexistence of the digital and physical.

Dr. Johanna Pirker is a computer scientist focusing on game development, research, and education and an active and strong voice of the local indie dev community. She has lengthy experience in designing, developing, and evaluating games and VR experiences and believes in them as tools to support learning, collaboration, and solving real problems. Johanna has started in the industry as QA tester at EA and still consults studios in the field of games user research. In 2011/12 she started researching and developing VR experiences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At the moment, she is Ass.Prof. for game development at TU Graz and researches games with a focus on AI, HCI, data analysis, and VR technologies. Johanna was listed on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list of science professionals.

With over 23 years of experience in fine jewelry, Elle has amassed an unparalleled array of international business management expertise, omnichannel marketing savvy and a stable of A list clients served by her and her team of fine jewelry industry experts.

Elle has:

• Launched her own international award-winning fine designer jewelry retailer in 2011 which she brought public with a $10M IPO on the Australian Stock exchange in under four years
• Overhauled the business model of double DTC site holder Dalumi Diamond’s multi-million dollar jewelry company, making it profitable, in 2010

From rebooting a legacy brand, to launching a new one, or identifying exactly where focus is required to see rapid results, Elle moves businesses from zero to market swiftly and increases profit innovatively for mid-sized to $500M+ businesses.

Leonie Flueckiger has a materials science and engineering degree from ETH Zurich, one of the most renowned technical universities in the world, and co-founded Adresta AG in 2019. She was awarded for her work both from large corporates and academia.

Adresta creates a digital twin for jewels, jewelry and watches and securely stores information about authenticity, ownership, and history on the blockchain. The company was granted the prestigious ETH-Spin Off Label for Flueckigers research in the field of blockchain technology and supply chain management. Adresta opens up a digital ecosystem around luxury products and secures first partnerships with large software, insurance, and telecommunication companies.

Kyle Roderick is the author and photo editor of BEJEWELED: The World of Ethical Jewelry, published by Rizzoli Books (2019). This is the first book to survey a selection of international designers who source sustainably mined gold, gemstones, pearls and other materials as well as pay their artisans higher than the living wage in their cities. As a contributing writer at Forbes.com, she covers design-driven, sustainable and luxury jewelry plus watches. Roderick’s Instagram @bijouxreview is a leading source of information on sustainable jewelry design, news and views.