Changemaker
of the Year 2026
Picture © Adrien Maurice
— Luna Aslan
Luna Aslan is the founder of NOOSA Fiber, a Belgian textile innovation company developing circular, bio-sourced alternatives to conventional fibres. At the heart of the company is NOOSA®, a fibre conceived to combine durability with recyclability and to reduce the environmental impact associated with widely used textile materials. Rather than focusing solely on the fibre itself, NOOSA Fiber approaches circularity as a complete system, developing technologies that make it possible to recover and reuse textile resources. Central to that approach is NOOCYCLE, the company’s recycling technology designed to enable the regeneration of NOOSA® fibres and support closed-loop textile production. In recent years, Aslan and her team have continued to advance fully recyclable PLA-based textile systems while positioning the company within the changing European regulatory landscape for textiles. NOOSA Fiber was also highlighted in innovation initiatives linked to World Expo 2025 in Osaka. Through this combination of material development, recycling technology and circular design, Aslan is contributing to new ways of producing and recovering textiles at an industrial scale.
Picture © Charlie De Keersmaecker
— Bianca Quets Luzi
Bianca Quets Luzi has more than 25 years of experience in the fashion industry, working at the intersection of creativity, strategy and brand development. After starting her career at Maison Martin Margiela and Dirk Bikkembergs, she became CEO of Raf Simons in 2009. In this role, she helped develop the label into an independent fashion house and expand its activities while safeguarding the creative and cultural identity at its core.
Alongside her work at Raf Simons, Luzi is committed to sharing industry knowledge with a new generation. She co-founded the non-profit Wave Together, which connects young creatives with professionals from fashion and culture, and has mentored emerging Belgian designers through two consecutive editions of MoMu Antwerp’s REVERSE programme in 2025 and 2026. She also co-founded Luis Consulting, focusing on cultural exchange between Asia and Europe. In 2026, she co-curated Memory is Home at Modemuseum Hasselt, while continuing to lecture at the University of Antwerp.
Picture © Laetitia Bica
— Tom Van der Borght
Ghent-based Tom Van der Borght works across fashion, performance and visual art, combining his independent artistic practice with a teaching position in Fashion Design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. His work is known for challenging established ideas around beauty, identity and representation. Radical inclusivity runs throughout his collections, performances and research, with a particular focus on queer identity, body diversity and the creative possibilities that emerge when conventional fashion norms are questioned.
After presenting internationally and receiving prizes including the Première Vision Grand Prize and Public Prize at the Hyères Festival in 2020, Van der Borght has increasingly expanded his practice beyond the traditional fashion system. He contributed to an exhibition connected to World Expo 2025 in Osaka and collaborated with David Byrne on artwork for his new album. For Antwerp.Fashion Festival, he presented a research project centred on seven non-normative bodies, examining how identity and representation are constructed within fashion. Through both his artistic practice and teaching, he continues to create space for perspectives and bodies that have historically been underrepresented in the industry.