“10 fashion game-changers innovate
with waste-reducing
design techniques for the runway.”
Did you know that the fashion industry is now the world’s second most polluting industry in the
world, after oil?
That’s why The EcoChic Design Award was created.
Their mission is to educate, inspire and encourage designers around the world to reduce waste
through sustainable design innovation and to ultimately affect a monumental shift in the fashion
industry towards “a better way to redesign our fashion future”.
The EcoChic Design Award is the world’s largest sustainable fashion design competition
challenging emerging fashion designers to create mainstream clothing with minimal textile waste.
The 2015/16 cycle celebrates the competition’s fifth year anniversary and is open to emerging fashion
designers living in any country in Asia and Europe.
“The world is finally waking up to the horrific
environmental and social impacts caused by the wasteful
fashion industry and people are questioning how the
fashion industry has become the world’s second most
polluting industry, after oil.
This is a crucial time to act because fashion consumption is
at an all time high and this is driving up textile waste levels,
and the associated pollution, to shocking highs.”
“It’s imperative that we instill education into
tomorrow’s fashion industry.”
Christina Dean, Founder, Redress
Fashion NGO Redress’ biggest search in history for emerging sustainable fashion designers in
Asia and Europe has culminated with the unveiling of the ten designers who have made it as
The EcoChic Design Award finalists.
The talented ten out-designed a record number of applications received from 40 countries,
including newcomer countries such as India, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Serbia, Iran and Israel, and
this cohort of designers collectively represent the greater global focus put onto sustainable design
amongst emerging designers.
Cutting Waste Out of Fashion
Now these ten designers, who represent seven countries across Asia and Europe, will continue their
ambitions to create a more sustainable fashion industry as they produce their textile-waste-reducing
collections ready for the reveal on the Hong Kong Fashion Week runway in January 2016, where career-
changing prizes, including designing an up-cycled collection for Shanghai Tang, will be awarded.
“Through The EcoChic Design Award,
we are educating designers
around the world to reduce waste
through sustainable design innovation, to
inspire a more positive future for the industry.
The change we need is in their hands.”
Christina Dean, Founder, Redress
The EcoChic Design Award’s current competition cycle had unprecedented interest with over sixty
university partners joining to promote the competition to their students and alumni, including Central
Saint Martins in the UK, National Institute of Fashion Technology in India and Beijing Institute of
Fashion Technology in Mainland China.
For their applications, designers with less than three years’ industry experience and students were
challenged to design a textile waste-reducing womenswear collection.
The applications received showed diverse innovation, with many designers going all out and constructing
their own fabrics through weaving, patchwork or knitting using yarns and fabrics from cut up and unwoven
secondhand garments, off-cuts and even from surplus textile labeling.
The finalists will now bring their application concepts to life by each creating a six piece collection that
showcases their creativity using the waste-reducing design techniques of zero-waste, up-cycling
and reconstruction.
The EcoChic Design Award 2015/16 Finalists
Wang Di – Asia (Mainland Chinese)
Esther Lui – Asia (Hong Kong Chinese)
Pan Wen – Asia (Mainland Chinese)
Belle Benyasarn – Asia (Thai)
Sara Kiani – Europe (Danish living in UK)
Annie MacKinnon – Europe (British)
Cora Maria Bellotto Europe – (Italian living in Spain)
Patrycja Guzik – Europe (Polish)
Amy Ward – Europe (British living in Germany)
Tsang Fan Yu – Asia (Hong Kong Chinese)
The Judges
To secure their prominent position as finalists, each designer faced a fiercely influential jury of 10 judges,
including Raffaele Borriello, Creative Consigliere, Shanghai Tang; Orsola de Castro, Fashion Designer,
Cofounder of Estethica and Co-founder of Fashion Revolution; Susie Lau (Susie Bubble), Fashion Writer
and Editor; Anderson Lee, Vice Chairman of the Sustainable Fashion Business Consortium (SFBC); and
Stephanie Zhu, Fashion Editor ELLE China.
“I was extremely impressed with the level of thought put
into the initial sketches by the designers as well as
the propositions of use of fabrics,
be it using unconventional materials, zero-waste
patterns or secondhand textiles.
It’s interesting to see ideas of reducing waste being
put into practice in a multitude of ways.
This competition shows that when designers are still gestating
their ideas at the beginning of their careers, and they
become exposed to the concept of using limited resources
and coupled with their imagination, you get some
really exciting ideas that are truly innovative.”
International Judge, Susie Lau
Prizes to put waste back into fashion
The competition provides impressive prizes to support the emerging designers’ careers.
They include a one week immersive sustainable fashion trip to Hong Kong, with sponsorship
from Create Hong Kong during which the finalists will stay at EAST, Hong Kong.
They will take part in an educational design challenge, with sponsor Ford Motor Company, and
other design workshops and influential networking with top industry professionals.
Their stay in Hong Kong culminates at the Grand Final fashion show where the designers will
showcase their minimal waste collections on the runway to compete for career-changing prizes.
*The First Prize winner will design their own named capsule collection using up-cycled textiles
for Shanghai Tang, China’s leading luxury brand, and will later return to Hong Kong to work with
Shanghai Tang’s creative team from the collection’s design, production to marketing.
*The Second Prize winner will be coached by distinguished fashion designer, Orsola de Castro
and receive expert and targeted support that will propel his or her career in sustainable fashion design
forwards in preparation for the competitive market of attracting fashion media, buyers and sales.
*The Special Prize winner will design a sustainable outfit for supermodel Janet Ma to reveal at a
high profile event and in a top fashion editorial.
Other prizes include sustainable fashion books from Bloomsbury Publishing and Fairchild Books and
subscription to The Ethical Fashion Forum.
“Over the past five years The EcoChic Design Award
has provided support and inspiration for a new
generation of fashion designers, paving the way for
creative and environmental innovation.
It has inspired and encouraged a shifting of attitudes
towards a better way to redesign our fashion future.
I am proud and honoured to have been a part of it since inception:
it has changed my life as much as the lives of the young
designers it has supported.”
International judge, Orsola de Castro
The remaining 20 semi-finalists will now join Redress’ increasingly impactful community
of alumni, which include over 80 designers from the competition’s five-year history.
More information on Redress’ alumni can be found at:
http://www.ecochicdesignaward.com/alumni/
Want to Make a More Sustainable Fashion Statement?
Get the goods!
Check out these Sustainable Fashion Consumer Resources compiled by Redress including top books,
videos, websites, reports and organizations to help you can dig deeper into the world of sustainable fashion.
To Contact Redress:
Megan Lee
Email: megan@redress.com.hk
Tel: +852 2861 0360
Images courtesy of Ecochicdesign awards
Have you recycled, repurposed or upcycled any of your clothing?
What are you doing to minimize your impact on the environment through
your clothing choices?
Share your thoughts and comments with us.
“Shared on Waste Not Want Not Wednesday”
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It is a good news that there is awareness for the pollution that the fashion industry creates. It is really a problem that needs a solution and nowadays there are so many modern solutions to reduce the waste that is produced by every industry! I hope that what these girls are doing is really going to make a change in the sphere. Our main goal as population of this planet right now is to stop creating waste!