Lora Appleton is a recognized curator, designer, and leading voice in design. She is the Executive Director and Founder of the Female Design Council (FDC), an organization providing community, professional opportunities, grant programs and mentorship for all womxn in design, architecture and applied arts. She is a dedicated advocate for inclusion, equity, and tangible gender parity in design. 

Appleton is the Founder and Principal of kinder MODERN, her celebrated design gallery and studio specializing in contemporary and historical vintage furniture for children and the family home. She is a renowned specialist in the history of design, and wrote the foreword to Phaidon’s Design for Children: A comprehensive, genre-defining survey of children's product and furniture design from Bauhaus to today. Appleton’s curatorial and design work has been exhibited at several art and design fairs including Pulse Miami and Pulse New York, Collective Design Fair, Intercept (SOFA) Chicago, Dutch Design Week and Upstate Art Weekend. She has collaborated with numerous brands and design institutions including 1stDibs, Lexus, TEFAF, Design Miami, Design Within Reach, The Danish Agency for Culture, USM Modular, 3.1 Phillip Lim, and Carl Hansen & Søn. Her award winning collections have been acquired by and shown at the Brooklyn Museum, the Milwaukee Art Museum and the HBC Global art Collection among others.

Appleton serves on the NYCxDesign Steering Committee and has been the recipient of numerous industry prizes, including the American Society of Interior Designers’ ICFF Award, Interior Design’s Best of the Year Honoree, Architectural Digest’s Clever Award, and the Apartment Therapy Changemaker Award. Appleton continues to speak at numerous museums, universities and public events, and her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Cultured, Whitewall, Surface, Dezeen, Vogue, Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, Sight Unseen, Wallpaper*, Domus, Design Milk, Interior Design and many more.