Redress, the leading NGO working to reduce fashion’s waste, announces the 10 Redress Design Award 2020 Finalist sustainable fashion designers whose innovative, textile waste-reducing designs triumphed over other talented hopefuls applying from 46 regions to win their places in the finals of the world’s largest sustainable fashion design competition that will conclude in September 2020 in Hong Kong.
Christina Dean, Founder and Chair of Redress, says, “Fashion is in crisis. COVID-19 has devastated the business, the balance sheets and is affecting creativity on the drawing board. Meanwhile, fashion’s already staggering waste rates will likely spike due to shocking retail performance and dislocated supply chains that have stranded inventory and materials globally. Only the toughest and most talented designers will survive this crisis, and those designers who can up-cycle waste materials, like our 10 Redress Design Award Finalists, are already ahead of the pack as they enter a new fashion industry.”
The 10 finalists used a combination of zero-waste, up-cycling and reconstruction design techniques, sourcing waste materials generated from all parts of the fashion supply chain and consumers.
The Redress Design Award 2020 Finalists are:
Womenswear finalists: Menswear finalists:
Juliana Garcia Bello, The Netherlands Marie-Eve Aubry, Canada
Laura Krause, Albania Beatrice Bocconi, Italy
Grace Lant, Hong Kong Inhwa Jin, Korea
Tong Jianlong, Mainland China Ngoh Ha Thu Le, Vietnam
Ruth Weerasinghe, Sri Lanka Gönül Yigit, The Netherlands
Joining the international judging panel, Desiree Au, Publisher, Vogue Hong Kong, said, “Fashion is undergoing a tremendous cycle of change and Redress is on the forefront as a platform where new ideas take shape – to make the world more sustainable and fashion more responsible. I took such joy in reviewing all the entries because they are more than beautiful garments, there is a true mission behind each thread and stitch. An undisputed ‘fashion force’!”
From the finals to the fashion industry
Building on the importance of these skilled sustainable designers entering the industry at this crucial point in fashion’s history, the Redress Design Award partners with leading fashion companies to bring the winners’ innovative ideas into the heart of businesses, and to market. Following the Grand Final in September 2020 in Hong Kong, the two main winners will be announced.
The Menswear Prize winner will receive a career-changing mentorship with experts at VF Corporation, one of the world’s largest apparel, footwear and accessories companies of iconic brands including Vans®, The North Face® and Timberland®.
Competition judge Kevin Bailey, Executive Vice President and Group President, VF Corporation, Asia-Pacific, says, “Circular business is still in its infancy across the industry. Our hope is this Award equips emerging designers with the skills and knowledge needed to turn the fashion industry on its head, leading us towards a more sustainable future and providing the finalists with a stepping stone directly into the real world.”
The Womenswear Prize winner will join The R Collective, one of the world’s fastest growing up-cycling fashion brands, available on Net-A-Porter and sold previously at the likes of Lane Crawford and Barneys New York, which was inspired by the 13-year legacy of Redress. This winner will translate their final Redress Design Award competition collection into a limited edition breakthrough innovative capsule collection for retail in 2021, joining nine previous competition Alumni who have already worked with The R Collective.
With the equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles landfilled or burned every second, and over 100 billion garments produced annually it is crucial that steps are taken to deal with the industry’s growing waste problem.
The Redress Design Award 2020 is the competition’s 10th cycle anniversary and Redress is celebrating the 218 Alumni from 38 regions, many of whom have shot to fame. Notable examples include Kévin Germanier, recently in Forbes’ 2020 Europe 30 Under 30 for Art and Culture, whose up-cycled collections have retailed at MatchesFashion.com, JOYCE Hong Kong, Moda Operandi, BOONTHESHOP, Korea and are hits with A-list celebrities, including Lady Gaga, Björk, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Swift and K-Pop star, Sunmi.
“The Redress Design Award was a key point in my design career,” says Germanier, who this cycle joins as a judge. “It proves that sustainability can be glamorous, shiny and dazzling. Sustainability is now mainstream and it really shows in the level of the applicants and their concepts. This is so important as we need more designers ready to take on the waste challenges the fashion industry is facing,”
Other notable Alumni include British Katie Jones, who counts Kylie Minogue and Dua Lipa as fans, and Chinese Wen Pan and Taiwanese Hung Wei-Yu are both now on Net-A-Porter’s sustainable platform, NET SUSTAIN in collaboration with The R Collective, and Hong Kong’s Jesse Lee, whose up-cycled collection, supported by Levi’s®, will retail in select Levi’s® stores in Hong Kong under The R Collective label this May.
The People’s Choice goes to the Philippines
As well as the international judging panel, the Redress Design Award welcomes the public’s vote for their favourite semi-finalist. Proving his popularity and bagging a historic number of public votes in the competition’s history is semi-finalist menswear designer, Jann Christian Bungcaras from the Philippines, with his up-cycled and reconstructed collection, Adam’s Dominion, which uses a variety of pre and post consumer waste.
Media Enquiries
Stephanie Lai – PR & Marketing Manager Danie Liu – PR & Marketing Assistant
Email: stephanie@redress.com.hk Email: danie@redress.com.hk
Tel: +852 6048 4422 Tel +852 9589 2550
High-resolution images available for download here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fbyhpvvw16kh43q/AABV0J6tMUx4YU-Ar6mdhCUCa?dl=0
Editor’s Notes
Read more about the Redress Design Award 2020 finalists at www.redressdesignaward.com/finalists.
The Redress Design Award 2020 was open to emerging designers and students with less than four years of experience globally and included menswear and womenswear fashion design categories.
The Redress Design Award 2020 International Judges are Kevin Bailey, Executive Vice President and Group President, VF Corporation, Asia Pacific; Orsola de Castro, Fashion Designer, Global Creative Director and Co-Founder, Fashion Revolution; Kévin Germanier, Founder, Germanier and Winner, Redress Design Award 2014/15; Denise Ho, Creative Director; The R Collective; Susie Lau, fashion writer and consultant; Roger Lee, CEO, TAL Group, and Desiree Au, Publisher, Vogue Hong Kong.
The competition is organised by Redress and receives sponsorship from The Create Hong Kong of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, UPS, TAL Group, ADMCF and DLA Piper. See the full list of partners at https://www.redressdesignaward.com/partners.
The Redress Design Award 2020 prizes at https://www.redressdesignaward.com/2020/prizes.
Supporting Statistics:
(Globally) Every second, the equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned globally. Source: Ellen Macarthur Foundation (2017), A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning Fashion’s Future
The number of garments produced annually has doubled since 2000 and exceeded 100 billion for the first time in 2014: nearly 14 items of clothing for every person on earth. Source: McKinsey＆Company, 2016. Style that’s sustainable: A new fast-fashion formula.
(Globally) An estimated 92 million tons of textile waste is created annually from the fashion industry and is estimated to increase by about 60% between 2015 and 2030, with an additional new 57 million tons of waste generated annually. The anticipated total fashion waste in 2030 is 148 million tons – equivalent to annual waste of 175 kg per capita across the planet.
Source: Global Fashion Agenda and The Boston Consulting Group, Inc. (2017) Pulse of the Fashion Industry.
Explore more statistics related to fashion’s environmental impact here.
