30 Under 30 Art & Style: Meet The Visionaries Pushing The Boundaries Of Art And Style

From a designer turning university campuses into luxury silk scarves, to a key artist behind Netflix’s KPOP Demon Hunters, these 30 creatives are blazing the trail forward.

By Simone Melvin, McKenna Leavens and Ethan Davison

Claudia Sulewski is no stranger to the internet; she started her first beauty YouTube channel when she was 13, in 2009. A decade and a half later, Sulewski, 29, has 6 million online fans—something she realized was a powerful community for which to launch a product. The market was crowded with skin and makeup items, so she chose to focus on body care. In 2023 she started Cyklar, which sells body creams ($29), oil-infused body washes ($35) and roll-on fragrances ($24). “I self-funded that first launch, and it was the biggest risk and investment I had ever taken on,” she says. The risk has paid off: Forbes estimates the startup will bring in $15 million in revenue this year. Outside of Cyklar, she has harnessed that social media fame into brand partnerships including Onitsuka Tiger and YSL, and lan­ded acting gigs in the 2022 film I Love My Dad and Apple TV’s Shrinking.

Sebastian Nevols for Forbes

Sulewski is just one of the 30 honorees on this year’s 30 Under 30 Art & Style list who is having a big year. Since becoming a principal dancer for the American Ballet Theater, Chloe Misseldine, 24, has been lauded for her performances dancing a litany of leading roles this year including in Giselle and Swan Lake. Contemporary artist Sasha Gordon, 27, just debuted a solo show at David Zwirner in New York City in September to a packed crowd clamoring to look at her surrealist self-portraits. Visual development artist Kat Tsai, 29, has also seen the fruits of her labor in 2025, specifically creating the environmental design of Netflix series KPop Demon Hunters which was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars.

“Being creative feels like something that I don’t think I could live without,” Tsai says. “It’s this feeling—with my film work—of being able to contribute to something that is so much larger than me, and something that is going to impact and touch so many other people.”

Many other listers have capitalized on the white space in their respective fields. Photographer Cole Ferguson, 26, has been traveling with and shooting professional athletes since a teenager, most notably Olympic snowboarder Shaun White and the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani. Brooklyn-based artist Teya Kepila, 24, has turned her ceramics hobby into a multi-faceted brand called The Turmeric Times, an online store that doubles as a social media handle, where she promotes her art and lifestyle to an audience of about half a million on Instagram and has additionally partnered with brands like Dior, David Yurman and Nike.

Carly Stern, 27, transitioned from pursuing a masters degree in finance to becoming a luxury fashion stylist for high-profile clients. Her company now generates more than $12 million in annual revenue. “For four months straight, I did nothing but go to lunches with anybody I could in the fashion industry,” says Stern of her earlier days getting the business off the ground. Also in the luxury space: Olivia Cleary, 28, is the founder of The Clearly Collective, a brand that primarily makes silk scarves inspired by college campus architecture, and structures in places like Newport, Rhode Island to Lake Como in Italy. Cleary bootstrapped the business, growing it from a $150 investment to now over $1 million in annual revenue. Some of The Clearly Collective’s big-name clients include JP Morgan, L’Oréal, Delta and the U.S. Olympics.

Social media is, of course, increasingly important to young creatives looking to capitalize. Luke Meagher, 28, is a style and culture expert known for his fashion reviews under his social media moniker, HauteLeMode. He started his YouTube channel in high school and has since grown it to nearly a million followers, now having collaborated with brands like Gucci, Jimmy Choo and Saint Laurent. And since leaving an engineering job in 2023, Marco Zamora, 29, has pursued his passion for interior design by turning his projects into content for nearly 2 million followers on Instagram and over 1 million on TikTok.

The Under 30 list spotlights creatives and founders aged 29 or younger as of December 31, 2025, who have never before been named to a U.S., Europe or Asia 30 Under 30 list.

Following a public nomination process, each list is judged by a panel of industry leaders. In Art & Style, the 2026 list was judged by celebrity stylist KJ Moody; illustrator Angelica Hicks; Designer Simone Rocha, an Under 30 list alumna; and Isabella Burley, Former Editor-in-Chief of Dazed and CMO at Acne Studios. Of those named to the final list, 59% identify as people of color and 63% are women.

This year’s Art & Style list was edited by Simone Melvin, McKenna Leavens and Ethan Davison. For the complete Art & Style list, click here, and for full Under 30 coverage, click here.

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