First Challenge the Fabric Award to be presented at LFW

By

Barbara Santamaria

Published
Sep 6, 2018

A new fashion award encouraging emerging designers to embrace viscose as an alternative to other fibres is set to be launched with a catwalk show during London Fashion Week in September.

Organised by the Swedish Fashion Council, Ekman & Co, and contributing partners, Altri, Arauco, Sanyou Group, and Södra, the award is called Challenge The Fabric (CTF) and will be given to one of six nominees alongside a €30,000 prize.

“This is the first international fashion award launched by the Swedish Fashion Council, connecting young creatives with the industry and across disciplines to create awareness, to push limits and to improve the fashion industry in the long run. We are very excited about the outstanding talent in this first edition,” says Jennie Rosén, CEO of the Swedish Fashion Council.

The six finalists will present a selection of their BA collection alongside newly designed viscose looks to a jury of fashion experts on 13 September. The jury includes Penny Martin, editor-in-chief of The Gentlewoman; Tony Liu and Lindsey Schuyler, founders of Instagram account Diet Prada; Jo Barker, editor-in-chief of Re-Edition Magazine and Swedish designer Ann-Sofie Back, to name a few.

Meanwhile, competing for the CTF Award are Harry Freegard of London’s Central St. Martins, Brandon Wen of Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Christine-Marie Valtonen of Helsinki’s Aalto University, Anna Bernal of Arnhem’s ArtEZ, Elena Velez of New York Parsons School and Paolo Carzana of London’s University of Westminster.

In addition to the catwalk show, there will be a complementary exhibition presenting the viscose looks of Zhenyuan Yang of Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology; Yiyuan Sun of Donghua University and Kajsa Willumsen of the Swedish School of Textiles.

And SHOWstudio will host a panel discussion titled “The future of alternatives: how to sustain fashion”, which will be available to watch online on 14 September.