Educating designers to cut waste out of fashion

Early September, Redress presented the finale of The Redress Design Award 2019, where Maddie Williams from the UK won first prize and with this, the opportunity to create an up-cycled retail collection for sustainable fashion brand REVERB, under the JNBY Group, one of Mainland China’s largest fashion houses. Focusing on Redress’ mission to reduce waste in fashion, the high-spectacle event, attended by 1,000 fashion VIPs and industry experts, served to spotlight the critical need to educate designers to address the global textile waste crisis.

Winning designer Maddie Williams applies up-cycling and reconstruction techniques to reclaimed textiles, yarns and secondhand clothing, weaving them into zero-waste pieces that she constructs into her garments. “Taking my catwalk competition collection into a commercial up-cycled collection will be a steep learning curve and I’ll be trying my best to keep sustainable, circular principles at the core of what I do! This is our time to tackle the environmental problems that we have inherited - we won’t get another chance!”

Redress focuses on educating designers because 80 percent of a product’s environmental impact is laid down at the design stage. This ninth competition cycle, with Create Hong Kong (CreateHK) of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region as the Lead Sponsor, attracted hundreds of applications from designers in 45 regions and builds upon Redress’ 120 global fashion university partnerships, and 186 Alumni designers from 27 countries, of which 50 have launched their sustainable brands.

This year’s finalists, from Hong Kong, India, Australia, Canada, UK, Israel, Spain and Germany, created collections using sustainable and circular design techniques, up-cycling widely-available waste materials, from unwanted workers’ uniforms and saris to defective camping gear and bedsheets.

Roger Lee (CEO, of TAL Group) says “This competition offers next-generation designers the opportunity to develop a deep understanding of the environmental impact of the fashion supply chain and provides a platform to devise new sustainable models for the industry. Only through collaborations such as this can we collectively solve the issues facing fashion today.”

Please donate to support this important project working to cut waste out of fashion.

Best wishes,

Links:

• Redress Design Award 2019 Grand Final fashion show
• Redress Design Award 2019 Meet the Finalists
• Redress Design Award 2019 Highlights

PROJECT UPDATE

Redress recently announced the Redress Design Award 2019 Finalists - 10 emerging design talents shortlisted from hundreds of applicants from across the globe who are ready to transform fashion’s waste into want. Representing the cutting-edge of fashion creativity, the finalists, (who include menswear designers for the first time in the competition’s history), have just 11 weeks to bring their concepts to life before presenting their collections in Hong Kong later this year at the live Grand Final where the winners will be announced.

Using circular design strategies, these designers will showcase solutions for the abundance of textile waste created by the fashion industry on a daily basis – an estimated 92 million tons a year. “Despite an increase in awareness and some action across the industry, the catastrophic levels of waste are not diminishing fast enough. However, we are incredibly excited about the energy this next generation of Redress Design Award Finalists are charged with and their potential to drive a positive shift from linear to circular models of production. Each year the applicants’ creativity and thirst for knowledge increases, demonstrating higher levels of transformative thinking which is essential to solve this challenge” shared Christina Dean, Founder and Board Chair of Redress.

Design approaches are diverse among the 2019 finalists who are utilising a variety of textile waste types, including damaged camping equipment, wedding dresses, uniform waste and restaurant table linens. Each finalist showcases the power of designers to transform waste in their own unique style. 
 
"It’s been incredibly inspiring to return as a judge for the Redress Design Award this year,” said Clare Press, Vogue Australia’s Sustainability Editor. “The depth of thought and breadth of creativity, applied by these talented young designers to dreaming up circular fashion design solutions has really impressed me. I can’t wait to see the collections up close when the 10 finalists present in Hong Kong. I'm sure we will discover more than one future fashion star.” 
 
Now in its ninth cycle, Redress Design Award 2019 support includes Lead Sponsorship from Create Hong Kong (CreateHK) of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Gold Sponsorship from Eastman Naia™ and is partnered with over 130 educational institutes across the world. The competition spotlights the boundless creativity of emerging sustainable designers with a particular focus on the low waste design techniques of zero-waste, up cycling and reconstruction, while providing critical  knowledge and skills to a wide range of emerging fashion professionals through a range of educational activities and resources. 
 

Please donate to support this important project working to cut waste out of fashion. 

Best wishes,