Redress Design Award Competition Finalists

The Redress Design Award is the world’s largest sustainable fashion design competition. Organized by Redress, the competition works to educate emerging fashion designers around the world about sustainable design theories and techniques in order to drive growth towards a circular fashion system. By putting sustainable design talent in the global spotlight, the competition creates a unique platform for passionate and talented fashion game-changers to transform the global fashion industry and rewards the best with career-changing prizes to maximize long-term impact.

In September these 10 finalists showcase their collections and winners are announced who will receive money and mentorship towards a fashion career that works with, not against the planet.

 

Psy Lau

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“Through my designs I like exploring new solutions for fashion that have the potential to change consumption behaviours and limit the negative environmental impacts of the fashion industry”

— Psy Lau

Psy’s Redress Design Award collection ‘A.D.H.D’ draws inspiration from her personal journey living with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. Through the use of zero-waste, upcycling and reconstruction techniques, she pieces together secondhand clothing, knitwear and suits, and industry surplus, damaged textiles and yarns in a textured contrasting palette of yellow and black, symbolizing the coexistence of hyperactivity in a world of ‘normal’ people. Psy’s design philosophy is to always find beauty in things that are odd and imperfect. She holds a Higher Diploma in Fashion Design Menswear from Hong Kong Design Institute and is currently pursuing a BA in Fashion and Textiles at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

 

Lucy Saunders

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“Sustainable design is exciting and allows me to be creative whilst keeping true to my values. It’s about the combination of the old and new, being authentic and looking to the future.”

— Lucy Saunders

Lucy’s Redress Design Award collection, ‘ShowCase2021’, brings new life to items from her childhood to form a utility-inspired unisex collection. Upcycling a range of materials given by her friends or found in her home, including tents, old sailing flags and scout flags, along with secondhand garments, Lucy utilises unique elements on the fabrics such as eyelets and rope to allow the user flexibility in how each piece is worn. She holds a BA in Fashion from Kingston School of Art, UK. INSTAGRAM

 

Lili Anna Sipeki

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“I want to investigate new methods of innovation that solve complex issues around environmental sustainability in fashion by investigating design strategies for garment longevity, multi-functionality, alterability and mendability as well as physical and emotional durability.”

— Lili Sipeki

Lili’s Redress Design Award collection ‘REuniFORM’, focuses on tackling the large amount of waste that results from school uniforms. She reconstructs secondhand garments to transform them via patchworking techniques and quilting into elaborate, multi-functional and customizable high fashion garments that contradict the very notion of the uniform. Detachable pockets, frills and details increase the value and longevity of the garments. She holds a BA in Fashion Design from University of Chester and is currently pursuing a Masters in Fashion at Kingston University, UK.

INSTAGRAM

 

Kristina Vyzaite

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“As a young child, I watched my mother rip up an old coat to create two coats for my twin sister and me. Lithuania was still finding its feet after gaining independence from Soviet occupation – materials were scarce. This day has always stood out in my memory as it was the first time I was exposed to sustainability and rational consumption. Right now, the world’s consumerism is centred around ‘buy new’; I strive to change the default to ‘give new life. ”

— Kristina Vyzaite

Kristina’s Redress Design Award collection, ‘Nerimas’, draws inspiration from the art of crochet and its significance in her memories as a symbolic centrepiece of where her family would gather to share stories in Lithuania. She upcycles hand-crocheted textiles such as tablecloths and placemats as her raw material as the stitches can be easily unraveled and threads reused along with deadstock fabrics which are naturally hand-dyed from home grown plants. Kristina aims to promote longevity in her designs by educating consumers on repair techniques and via her concept of ‘generational threads’, passing emotive materials to new generations. She studied fashion design at Vilnius Academy of Arts in Lithuania and holds an MA Fashion from Kingston School of Arts, UK.

 

Jessica Chang

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“Evolving recycling advancement enables us to reuse materials that weren’t possible in the past; therefore, utilizing existing materials and problem-solving are things we must consider as responsible designers.”

— Jessica Chang

Jessica’s Redress Design Award collection, ‘The Wall’, explores the different forms of walls that form protection or barriers, from those existing in nature, to man-made architecture and emotional walls we built to protect our hearts. Jessica upcycles industry surplus textiles and secondhand clothing into garments, adding breathable window detailing, with the aim to reduce the frequency of garment washing. She holds a BA in Fashion Design from The New School Parsons, USA. INSTAGRAM

 

Friederike Snelting

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“As a designer, I feel responsible for my designs’ impact and effects, especially the social and environmental aspects. We are the industry’s creative heads, and it is time to act and protect our planet by innovating the industry and setting an example”

— Friederike Snelting

For her Redress Design Award collection, ‘RE.SKI’, Friederike takes aesthetic inspiration from the shape and structure of the inflated packaging fillers she designed after a research project on packaging alternatives to reduce waste. She creates functional winter clothing from upcycled production surplus and adds features such as quilting, along with oversized fits and elasticized waistbands to prolong the lifecycle of the garments with the wearer as their body changes. She holds a BA (Hons) in Fashion Design from University of Applied Science (HTW Berlin), Germany and an MA Fashion Design Technology Menswear from London College of Fashion, UK. INSTAGRAM

 

Tulika Ranjan

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“I love to research as part of my creative process and have visited Panipat – one of the worlds largest importers of secondhand clothes, big garment factories in Bangladesh through to remote weavers in Indian villages. I have seen first hand the real problems calling for real solutions and my dream is to be a part of this change.”

— Tulika Ranjan

Tulika aims to provoke conversation about mental health through her Redress Design Award collection, ‘Just an Outlier’. She celebrates rebels with a cause, who don’t conform to the fabric of society and their grit that can lead to them being propellers of systemic change. With a focus on upcycling and zero-waste design techniques, Tulika sources undyed fabrics to ensure no trace of chemicals and upcycles them taking inspiration, both aesthetically and metaphorically from the Rorschach test, applying hand screen printing, inkblots and applique. She holds a BDes in Fashion Design from National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi, India. INSTAGRAM

 

Liu Feng

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“Sustainable design is a new topic for me, that I discovered in graduate school and learned that fashion design can contribute to sustainable development. I am enjoying delving deeper into that area to reduce textile waste and make a positive impact on the environment.”

— Liu Feng

Feng’s Redress Design Award collection, ‘Left-behind Children’, is inspired by the stories of the young victims of a huge social issue in China, whose parents are forced to leave their home villages – and their children – behind to seek employment in major urban centres. Feng’s collection upcycles predominantly denim deadstock fabric selected for its prolificacy, which she trims with ‘left-behind children’s’ secondhand clothes. She plays with layering and structural elements to represent the notion of warm hugs that these children so need from their parents. She holds a BA in Apparel Design (Womenswear) from Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, and is currently pursuing an MA in Pattern and Garment Technology from London College of Fashion. INSTAGRAM

 

Isabella Li Kostrzewa

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“I am so deeply inspired by the limitations that come with zero-waste making. It’s like a puzzle or a game, finding something out of nothing – the euphoric feeling when you crack the code of a new pattern, or find a use for the last piece of scrap.”

— Isabella Li Kostrzewa

Isabella’s Redress Design Award collection, ‘Everything Bad I’ve Ever Done’, started from a challenge they gave themselves during Covid-19 lockdown to create a truly local collection sourced within 30 miles of their hometown in rural Michigan. Inspired by the visual aesthetic of the late 60s/early 70s and second wave feminism and counterculture, Isabella combines traditional feminine handiwork with a hard edge, utilitarian power twist. They apply zero-waste pattern techniques on secondhand linen curtains, tablecloths and napkins, creating boxy, fluid silhouettes made for multipurpose and gender free use allowing for maximum wearer flexibility. They are pursuing a Fashion Design (BFA) from Parsons School of Design, USA, and are exploring sustainable expression for all genders with their brand ISABOKO. INSTAGRAM

 

Jin Pei-Wen

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“I believe that the only way for industry to coexist with nature is to consider sustainability as a necessary priority in every decision. As a fashion designer, I have the responsibility to make sure that not only the aesthetic works, but also the whole production process behind the garment has been well tracked and controlled.”

— Jin Pei-Wen

Pei-Wen was inspired by the multiple patterns created by the polygons in a tangram puzzle to create geometric zero-waste patterns for her Redress Design Award collection, ‘Tangram Club’. Upcycled from sample manufacturing waste, the result is a feminine, voluminous collection made for multiple body types with multi-wearing options. Pei-Wen designs the collection with disassembly in mind for the end-of-life to further extend the life of the textiles through assembly into a new style. She is currently pursuing an MA in Fashion Design at Shih Chien University, Taiwan. INSTAGRAM