About this episode

Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli celebrate remarkable female designers who have been overlooked in history on International Women’s Day 2026.

Happy International Women’s Day! One of Alice and Paola’s favourite episodes of Design Emergency every year is the International Women’s Day Special in which they celebrate some of the incredible female designers, who, despite their talent and achievements, haven’t been given the recognition they richly deserve. Among them are the five Swedish women who founded and ran a School of Women’s Citizenship in the 1920s to teach newly enfranchised Swedish female voters compatriots how to become responsible citizens; Leona Chalmers, the pioneering US designer of an early version of the mass manufactured menstrual cup; Rosa Grena Kliass, the first woman who was registered to practice landscape architecture in Brazil; and the futuristic 1960s French fashion designer, Michele Rosier. As well as paying tribute to these remarkable women, Paloa and Alice explore why, despite their talent, intelligence, skills and sensitivity, they and other female designers have been unfairly forgotten or marginalised. Misogyny is the obvious explanation, but many of them have also faced challenges due to their ethnicity, geography, sexuality, religions and other factors. At this turbulent time, when we…

People in this episode

Hosts: Alice Rawsthorn, Paola Antonelli

Topics covered

• female designers
• recognition
• misogyny
• design history
• International Women’s Day
• marginalization

Keywords

• Hidden Heroines
• design
• women in design
• marginalized designers
• International Women’s Day
• female empowerment
• design history

Mentioned in this episode

Places: Sweden, Brazil

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• Maya Bird-Murphy on Architecture and Communities · September 9, 2025 · 25 min
• David Gissen on the Architecture of Disability · July 22, 2025 · 37 min
• Tosin Oshinówò on Designing Africa’s Future · July 1, 2025 · 39 min

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