The King’s Foundation announces nominations for 2025 Awards
We are delighted to announce the nominees for The King’s Foundation Awards 2025. The annual Awards recognise and celebrate the work and contributions of students, graduates, teachers, partners and collaborators associated with the charity, which aims to build sustainable communities and transform lives across the world. The Awards ceremony will be held in June at St James’s Palace.
Nominees this year include Maro Itoje and his Akoje Residency for International Impact, the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation for Community Partnership of the Year, influencer Alice Loxton for Advocate of the Year and up-and-coming milliner Emily Hurst and embroidery graduate Beth Somerville, who was recently commissioned by HM Queen Camilla to re-embroider her wedding coat, for Emerging Talent.
Emerging Talent
Emily Hurst has recently completed the CHANEL and King’s Foundation Métiers d’Art Fellowship in Millinery, based at Highgrove Gardens. In her final year of university, Emily independently learned the heritage craft of straw braiding to produce historically accurate hats, a skill that has since become central to her practice.
Neil Cunningham is a self-trained traditional signwriter from Navan, County Meath in the Republic of Ireland. Neil recently completed the All-Ireland Heritage Skills Programme, run by The King’s Foundation.
Ruadh Thomson is a recent graduate from our Hospitality Training programme based at Dumfries House. Ruadh is now employed at Johnnie Walker Princes Street in Edinburgh.
Young Entrepreneur
Barnaby Horn is a London-based milliner who has recently completed the CHANEL and King’s Foundation Métiers d’Art Fellowship in Millinery, based at Highgrove Gardens. Known for his exploration of gender through playing with familiar shapes and historic cultural references, in 2023 he launched his namesake label ‘Barnaby Horn’. Barnaby has an experimental approach to millinery and is dedicated to developing a mastery in the traditions of the craft.
Jacob Marks graduated from the Snowdon School of Furniture three years ago and is now a designer and maker whose practice focuses on reimagining of natural materials and traditional techniques. After working for a series of furniture makers including Bibbings & Hensby, he now crafts bespoke furniture and homewares in his workshop in South-West London.
Emma Rose Allen took part in the second edition of The King’s Foundation’s Modern Artisan programme, based at Dumfries House. She has since gone on to launch EROSA Studios, a luxury size-inclusive womenswear brand based in North Wales. EROSA focuses on handcrafted, timeless pieces created with sustainability at the core. Each piece has the unique ability to adapt to 5 dress sizes, allowing her garments to last throughout our lifetimes and stay out of landfill.
Beth Somerville is an embroiderer and textile artist focused on material innovation and sustainability, having graduated from CHANEL and King’s Foundation Métiers D’Arts Fellowship in Embroidery in 2024. Beth produced outstanding work on the fellowship which lead her to be awarded The Young Embroiderer of the Year by Heritage Crafts. She has since established her own embroidery studio, working on private commissions.
International Impact
The Fashion Council Germany works with The King’s Foundation on innovative fashion and craft exchanges, aimed at influencing the next generation of German fashion designers. The Fashion Council funds an annual pupil exchange to Dumfries House, which is expanding to over 40 pupils in 2025 with the aim of broadening their knowledge of harmony and textile craft skills.
The Akoje Residency is a non-profit initiative founded by Maro Itoje and Khalil Akar to support artists from African, Caribbean, and SWANA (South West Asia and North Africa) regions through cross-cultural exchange and infrastructure support. Its first edition, in partnership with The King’s Foundation, offers up to eight fully funded three-month residencies annually at Dumfries House, Scotland. The Akoje Residency x King’s Foundation Artist in Residence Programme offers up to 8 fully funded residencies a year, each residency for a 3-month term, designed to afford opportunities for African, Caribbean and diaspora artists.
The Commonwealth Association of Architects comprises national architectural associations from all five Commonwealth regions. Through its extensive network, CAA supports professionals working in the built environment. CAA was a founder member of the Commonwealth Sustainable Cities Initiative which successfully ensured these issues were recognised as a priority for the Commonwealth in the Declaration on Sustainable Urbanisation adopted by member states at CHOGM in 2022.
Advocate of the Year
Alice Loxton is a history broadcaster and author with over three million followers on social media where she educates on British heritage and history. Her latest book, Eighteen: A History of Britain in 18 Young Lives, was a Sunday Times bestseller and Blackwell’s Book of the Year 2025. Alice has helped promote The King’s Foundation’s work to protect traditional skills, and celebrate the history of these skills, to a new and digitally-engaged audience.
Tony Singh is a passionate supporter of The King’s Foundation’s Introduction to Hospitality programme. Whether delivering inspiring keynote speeches at hospitality events, leading masterclass kitchen workshops for our Hospitality students, or engaging schoolchildren with his signature warmth and humour, Tony brings enthusiasm to everything he does. He actively champions our work at The King’s Foundation through his presence on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, helping reach wider audiences with real impact.
Patrick Holden is the founder and CEO of the Sustainable Food Trust, whose mission is to work internationally to accelerate the transition towards more sustainable food and farming systems. Between 1995 and 2010, he was Director of the Soil Association, the UK organic advocacy and certification organisation, where he played a leading role in developing the organic standards and market. Patrick is a member of The King’s Foundation Harmony Advisory Board and has long been a supporter and advocate for not only the King’s Foundation’s work but the importance of His Majesty’s vision of Harmony – especially as it relates to practice.
Community Partnership of the Year
Vibrant Communities Service (VCS) has been a longstanding and important partner to The King’s Foundation at Dumfries House, most notably around the provision of monthly Tea Dances to combat loneliness and isolation for older people across Ayrshire. VCS lead on the recruitment of participants, transportation and entertainment and they are an enthusiastic and flexible partner who see the value of Dumfries House as a community asset and in its ability to impact the health and wellbeing of the community.
The Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation exists to inspire a more equitable, inclusive society and to foster opportunities for marginalised young people in the UK. Established to honour Stephen Lawrence’s legacy, the foundation focuses on empowering youth through education, community engagement, and career development. The Foundation works with The King’s Foundation to award full scholarships to students to attend the Diploma Year Foundation Course in art and traditional artistic skills at Trinity Buoy Wharf in London.
Auchinleck Primary School is a school of 180 pupils aged 4-12, 90% of whom are from the most deprived areas of Scotland. The school has enthusiastically adopted The King’s Foundation’s Harmony education programme, supporting and encouraging its staff to build Harmony into their annual lesson planning. Classes from the school are regular visitors to the estate, taking part in STEM, farming and rural skills, activity and adventure, and horticulture day visits as well as the longer term Growing Together Cooking Together programme that helped kick start their school garden, with the help of dedicated school teaching and support staff.
Corporate of the Year
Patagonia is a retailer of outdoor recreation clothing, equipment, and food. In 1985 Patagonia pledged 10% of company profits to environmental conservation groups. It later increased its pledge and committed 1% of sales to conservation organisations. Patagonia became B Corp in 2012 gives around $100 million a year toward climate issues, hoping to prove that doing what’s right for the planet can be profitable in business.
Pukka Tea give 1% of annual sales to environmental causes. Their packaging is 100% recyclable and the tea bags are certified compostable, they have planted 1.6m trees and 1000s of acres of land protected in partnership with World Land Trust in Guatemala, Vietnam and Mexico.
Scottish Power are a renewable energy focused organization who oversee Whitelee Windfarm as a brilliant example of harmony in practice, showing how modern advancements can work alongside Scottish Power advise on our green energy content, are present at our open day and provide huge support during our annual Green Energy Skills Week.
Teaching Award
Claudia Peñaranda Fuentes has for many years taught on The King’s Foundation’s Master’s degree programmes and she is also a member of the Advisory Board. She is currently the Road Decarbonisation Strategy lead in Transport for London. In 2016/17 Claudia led the team that defined and prioritised London’s strategic cycle network and published the Strategic Cycling Analysis (TfL, 2017), which considers housing growth, road safety for all vulnerable users, the bus network and interchanges to train stations
Samantha Buckley graduated with distinction from The King’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts in 2006. She has since worked steadily as an artist, designer, and teacher, bringing her enthusiasm and high standards into all aspects of her work. Samantha also teaches in AlUla, Saudi Arabia, as an artist-in-residence working side-by-side with the next generation of artists to develop their skills. Samantha teaches regularly for the School of Traditional Arts and is a popular teacher in the Open Programme.
Robert Fawcett is a Senior Core Tutor for the Diploma Year in art at Trinity Buoy Wharf. He is an outstanding teacher who has influenced, supported and guided hundreds of students through his career. His specialist areas are drawing, painting, gilding and sculpture. His teaching style is gentle and he builds mutual respect through the demonstration of his skill.
Innovation in Practice
Yasmeen Lari is Pakistan’s first female architect, a leading voice connecting architecture, social justice and a climate-conscious approach to building. Since her official retirement from architectural practice in 2000, Yasmeen has focused on humanitarian work through Heritage Foundation Pakistan, the NGO she co-founded with her late husband. Through the Foundation, she has demonstrated impactful approaches to heritage conservation, and developed innovative models to successfully deliver low-carbon, disaster resilient community facilities and housing at significant scale for some of Pakistan’s most marginalised communities.
Timorous Beasties is a globally-recognised Scottish company focused on handcrafted textile printing. Based on nature-inspired artwork highlighting British floral and fauna including provocative toiles of UK cities, the imagery has stood the test of time. They employ 20 people across UK across one studio and warehouse and three shops. They supplied a specially created design for DH visitor centre and café and they regularly donate luxury quality fabrics for use in Future Textiles programmes as well as offering mentorships and work placements.
Ammar Jiman is a Jeddah-based artist working with traditional palm weaving and painting techniques to explore cultural and personal narratives relating to his Saudi and Malay-Thai heritage. Since first studying with The King’s Foundation’s School of Traditional Arts in 2018/19 at the Jameel House of Traditional Arts, Jeddah, Ammar Jiman has demonstrated a great sensitivity towards locally sourced materials, developing a practice incorporating natural dyes, pigment making, bio materials, painting and palm weaving.
