The 2014 EcoChic Design Award has now officially been launched, and we are very proud to be one of the prize sponsors for a second year running. If you are a fashion student or newly qualified fashion designer, and think you’ve got what it takes to cut waste out of fashion … read on!
The EcoChic Design Award is a sustainable fashion design competition inspiring emerging fashion designers to create mainstream clothing with minimal textile waste. Designers are educated with the theory and techniques to enable them to create desirable sustainable clothing via zero-waste, up-cycling and reconstruction sustainable design techniques.
The 2014/15 competition cycle is open to fashion designers with less than three years’ professional experience and fashion design students living in Hong Kong, Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, UK, France, Germany, Sweden and Denmark. One finalist from each of the ten regions will be selected to present their sustainable collection at Hong Kong Fashion Week in mid January 2015 to compete for career-changing prizes.
Here’s what last year’s finalists had to say about their experience:
“My favourite stage of the competition was arriving to Hong Kong and meeting all the other finalists, who all shared the same outlook about conscious fashion. It was great exchanging our different opinions about the future of fashion.”
Moment to remember:
“Being in the clothes-recycling warehouse where we had to choose four garments to be recycled and transferred into a dress for the Designer Challenge with Miele. I just loved this place and wished I could have stayed much longer to get inspired by all these beautiful garments. I saw the potential for many beautiful collections.”
Favourite stage of the competition:
“Meeting designers of other nationalities and sharing moments, the experiences and the challenges with them!”
Moment to remember:
“‘… and the 2nd Prize winner is : Louise de Testa!’ + Orsola de Castro offering me to show my collection at London Fashion Week’s Estethica Showrooms in February!”
“The whole process was very valuable to me, especially learning and putting into practice the sustainable design techniques.”
Moment to remember:
“The EcoChic Design Award final show and the opportunity to show all my pieces to the audience and all the promotion.”
Moment to remember:
“There’s too many!! everyone was amazing!! :D”
Hong-Kong Fashion Week in one word:
“crazy, unforgettable”
Fun fact:
“Builders use bamboo as scaffolding in Hong Kong”
Biggest surprise:
“Realizing that there’s a lot of passionate people working in the industry trying to push for a greener future.”
Moment to remember:
“Helping each other to unpack and line up our outfits for the meet the finalists video recording.”
Greatest Challenge:
“To balance sustainability and commerciality in my designs.”
Moment to remember:
“The fashion show and every moment I spent with the other finalists.”
“Hong-Kong Fashion Week was a real opportunity to have my work shown and also a really good experience! I had such a good time in Hong Kong that I don’t even feel I came to participate in a competition. I didn’t feel any stress because all the work was done before we arrived. For me, to be invited to Hong Kong for such a nice trip was already a win.”
Moment to remember:
“The after-party, because I could speak with members of the jury and other fashion professionals that gave me their opinion on my work – something you don’t get everyday!”
As part of the first prize package, the winner will receive a one-year subscription to The Berg Fashion Library, as well as a one-year printed subscription to two Bloomsbury fashion and/or textile journals of choice.
The winner will also get to design his/her own capsule collection for China’s leading luxury brand Shanghai Tang.
Amongst other prizes, the 10 finalists will get a six-month subscription to the Library from us to help with their final collections research, and copies of the three most recent books from our Fairchild Books Basics Fashion Design series.
The 30 semi-finalists will be given a copy of Alison Gwilt’s Practical Guide to Sustainable Fashion – essential to kick-start a zero-waste career.
Now, time to stop reading, and get started on applying for this fabulous opportunity!