Redress Design Award

For five years, Redress, together with VF Corporation, has been awarding what it claims is the world’s largest award for sustainable fashion design. The Hong Kong-based NGO is committed to bringing sustainable design talent into the global spotlight to create a platform for talented fashion designers who want to transform the global fashion industry. The best will be awarded Redress Design Awards prizes that will change their careers – and hopefully the system.

Here’s how it works: Each competition cycle takes the participants on a theory- and design-heavy educational journey lasting several months. The content here is about communicating the impact of fashion on the environment as well as sustainable design techniques such as zero waste and upcycling in order to reduce waste production and develop towards a circular economy. The result of the sustainable design journey lasting several months is an own, commercially viable collection made from textile waste, which will be presented to the jury in Hong Kong.

With Anna Schuster we already had a finalist in 2019. Among other things, Anna founded the upcycling label JOA in London, coordinated Green Fashion Tours in Munich and was scheduled to be an exhibitor and panel participant at GREENSTYLE in March 2020. However, it fell victim to the pandemic. Today, as Sustainability Manager at Hugo Boss, Anna is one step closer to her desire to “give something back to nature through innovative design thinking and creativity.”

Welcome to Hongkong. Welcome to Redress Design Award 2023

In September I had the opportunity to attend the Redress Design Award Show on site at the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Center as part of Centrestage, Hong Kong Fashion Week.

Nine finalists from Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Sri Lanka and the USA presented their ideas and collections to the international jury in Hong Kong. In the end, 22-year-old Nils Hauser from the Fashion Design Institute Düsseldorf came out on top.

For me, sustainability means finding ways to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Making beautiful clothes shouldn’t involve polluting our planet. – Nils Hauser

For his winning collection, Nils upcycled, among other things, one of his parents’ tents.

His collection “Ex Voto” is – so I read – dedicated to a city that has fallen and been rebuilt. A dark future scenario, which Nils presents with his multifunctional pieces such as the vest, which is worn in four different variations, and a collar that is folded into a mask can, encountered.

Nils made his collection from upcycling materials. These include, for example, a sofa cover (he likes to collect from furniture stores) and nylon from an old family tent that was mothballed in his parents’ basement. “At music festivals I saw tents being thrown away and I thought, ‘Why not reuse the material? It is durable and high quality.’ So I got the tent back from my parents and gave it a second life.”

My conclusion?

Fashion awards that promote young talent and focus on sustainability are an important part of the change because an estimated 80 percent of a product’s environmental impact is determined in the design phase. The influence of designers on the further development towards circularity in the fashion industry is correspondingly great. I am all the more pleased that I have been able to work on the realignment of the City of Munich Fashion Prize as a project manager since September. Stay tuned.

Thanks to:

HKTDC (Hong Kong Trade Development Council) for the invitation to Centrestage – Asia’s Spotlight in Fashion and Florian Müller from Müller PR & Consulting, who brings, in addition to the best guest management ever and his commitment to his exciting and important specialist area of mental health in fashion, follows fashion people from Germany Asia. (My article about my brand discoveries at Centerstage and Florian’s Mental Health Panel will follow soon)