Winner of the Young Leatherworker of the Year Award

London leatherworker Preethi Kosanam has won the inaugural Young Leatherworker of the Year Award, supported by the Leathersellers’ Foundation, including a £1,000 prize awarded at a special presentation at Eltham Palace on Tuesday 26 November 2024.

Heritage Crafts was set up 14 years ago as a national charity to support and safeguard heritage crafts skills, and has become well known for its Red List of Endangered Crafts, the first research of its kind to rank traditional crafts in the UK by the likelihood they will survive the next generation.

The award, supported by Leathersellers’ Foundation, celebrates a young leatherworker who has made an outstanding start to their craft career. The winner is highly skilled amongst their peers, whilst raising the perceived value of their craft through sharing and awareness raising. They have given themselves a fantastic chance of achieving long-term success, perhaps overcoming disadvantage or setbacks along the way.

Preethi Kosanam is a graduate of the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Chennai, where she specialised in leather garments and accessories, and now studies at the London College of Fashion. Most recently, she won the prestigious Dents Prize for the most commercial and innovative glove design. She is deeply committed to creating products that are not only functional but also profoundly expressive. She uses craftsmanship as a medium to address today’s pressing issues in fashion, such as sustainability, ethics and consumer responsibility.

The judging panel for the award was made up of Yusuf Osman (leatherworker), Anu Bankole (accessories and product designer), and Kerry Senior (Director at Leather UK).

The two other finalists for the award were Ana Del Rio, a fashion designer specialising in leathercraft and the founder of her own brand ANA DEL RIO, and Shuyen Chen, a bookbinder on the Graduate Program at West Dean College who won the Best Craftsperson Award in the inaugural Edward James Bookbinding Competition.