Tamara Cincik

Tamara Cincik came to politics through fashion.

She had spent more than 20 years working across styling, fashion editing and brand consultancy when the Fabian Women’s Network mentoring scheme gave her a route into Parliament. For the first time, she was seeing the industry she knew from the other side of the door.

What struck her was how absent it was.

Cincik has said that, before Fashion Roundtable launched, fashion had not been discussed in the House of Commons for more than seven years. An industry spanning manufacturing, retail, labour, trade, culture and environmental impact was still too often being treated as something decorative rather than economic.

So, in 2017, she founded Fashion Roundtable.

The organisation was built to connect the fashion industry with policymakers, bringing evidence, expertise and people from across the sector into the rooms where decisions are made. Today, it is a think tank and consultancy and acts as secretariat to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion.

Cincik’s work has since expanded across education, trade and sustainability. She is Professor of Fashion and Sustainability at Bath Spa University and a Commissioner on the UK Trade and Business Commission. In 2024, she launched the Great British Wool Revival with The King’s Foundation, reconnecting farmers, makers and designers across a fragmented domestic wool supply chain.

The settings have changed, but the work is remarkably consistent.

Cincik started inside fashion. She has spent the years since making sure the industry has a voice in the places that shape what happens to it.