Karinna Grant
INNOVATOR - ENTREPRENEUR - EDUCATOR
STAY
CURIOUS
and
KEEP
DANCING
Two of my mantras for life.
Karinna started her fashion career as a visual merchandiser working for Benetton, Kookai and Ralph Lauren. She moved into academia when she realised how inspirational and rewarding teaching fashion was. During her 15 year full time academic career she has taught in more than 25 institutions, spoken at over 100 conferences, across 19 countries, to audiences as intimate as 3 to as intimidating as 3000.
A published researcher and author, her expertise ranges from retail and branding to communication and consumer behaviour as applied to the fashion, beauty and luxury sectors. She began her lecturing career at Glasgow Caledonian University and went on to teach at London College of Fashion. She was a visiting lecturer at Oxford SAID Business School, Parsons, the Antwerp School of Management, Istituto Marangoni and Hyper Island and was awarded an affiliate Professorship at ESCP Europe where she led a Trends and Innovation module from 2018-2021.
In 2017 she pivoted her career from academia into industry as a futurist whereby she consulted with agencies like Holition, Sunshine, Acne and Wednesday, media brands like the Business of Fashion, Decoded Fashion and Frieze and luxury brands including La Prairie, The Vampire’s Wife and Swear London.
Karinna is a frequent host, moderator and speaker at Industry conferences including SXSW, Marketing Week, Decoded, Financial Times Luxury Summit, IFA and many more.
In November 2019 she self-funded the launch of HOT:SECOND a world-first circular economy concept store trading physical products for digital fashion experiences. From 2020-2023 she co-founded and lead THE DEMATERIALISED an experiential marketspace for virtual goods.
In 2024 Karinna’s TED talk ‘What’s the Point of Digital Fashion’ was published, she consulted with creative agency Closer and VTO business Zyler and most excitingly is concepting her next start-up.
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