Left to right: Zainab Goelaman, Eva Sonneveld, Christian Mpamo, Frederieke Broekgaarden, Charlotte Bakkenes and Huong Nguyen
Credit: Fashion for Good
AMSTERDAM – Fashion for Good is proud to announce six young creative talents to the GROW talent project. The creatives were selected from a pool of 119 applicants from across the Netherlands by a jury of creative professionals in a session moderated by Managing Director of Fashion for Good Katrin Ley.
The GROW talent project is a 3-month programme in which young creatives will create an exhibition for the Fashion for Good museum. Innovative, sustainable biomaterials will, for the first time, be used to create sustainable garments by the talents and together they will create a story around the process.
The selected creatives are; fashion designers Frederieke Broekgaarden, Charlotte Bakkenes, Huong Nguyen and Eva Sonneveld, content creator Christian Mpamo and copywriter Zainab Goelaman.
“It’s important to test and investigate the properties of these materials that will drive change and have a positive impact on the industry. We’re extremely excited to have the talents experiment and test these biomaterials, and to see the unique creations they will realise through this project.” – Katrin Ley, Managing Director, Fashion for Good
GROW talent is a part of Fashion for Good’s year long exhibition GROW, focusing on biomaterials in the fashion industry. The first GROW exhibition, GROW 1.0, is currently open to the public. During the GROW talent project, which runs from June to September, the selected creatives will work towards creating the second exhibition, GROW 2.0, which will launch later this year in October.
The fashion designers, Frederieke Broekgaarden, Charlotte Bakkenes, Huong Nguyen and Eva Sonneveld, join the project to create garments using innovative biomaterials; exploring and testing how they can be used to create the sustainable fashion industry of the future. Materials are provided to the creatives to craft their garments by Fashion for Good innovators Flocus, based in the Netherlands with textiles made from Kapok fibre, Finnish innovator Spinnova that supplies their pioneering cellulosic based fibre, French-Indian innovator Green Whisper that creates banana fibre based textiles, and American innovator Natural Fiber Welding that developed MIRUM, a plant based, plastic free leather alternative that is entirely recyclable.
Content creator Christian Mpamo and copywriter Zainab Goelaman will capture the entire journey of the project, from concept to the final exhibition. In addition to sharing progress and updates of the project for the world to follow, their work will also be part of the new exhibition.
“Personally I am working a lot on innovation in terms of sustainable materials so I am very excited to have helped select the talent for this project” – Iris van Herpen, GROW talent jury member
Besides the creations from the GROW talent project, to show the wider application of biomaterials, this exhibition also features an original biomaterial creation from designer Iris van Herpen as well as a garment created by designer Karim Adduchi using Orange Fiber’s innovative silk-like fabric made from waste from the citrus industry. Running until March 2022, the exhibition will then travel to three major European cities.
“I am fascinated with this theme, and I’m hoping to see some inspiring future oriented designs which are not just about what it looks like, but more about what kind of interaction or activity it can trigger” – Daan Roosegaarde, GROW talent jury member
Over the course of the project, the creatives will receive guidance and support from the jury, the Fashion for Good team, as well as selected mentors. The jury consists of fashion designer Iris van Herpen, designer and inventor Daan Roosegaarde, creative directors of BOTTER and Nina Ricci – Rushemy Botter and Lisi Herrebrugh, and editor in chief of Vogue Netherlands Rinke Tjepkema. Exhibition designer Harm Rensink, designer Rueben Selby and PR guru Leroy Aznam from Off Grid PR Agency, amongst others, join as mentors to offer their experience and industry expertise.
Click here to read more about the GROW talent project.
The project will also be open to the public in the form of three online GROW masterclasses. The three one-hour sessions will dive into all things biomaterial and their role in the sustainable future of the fashion industry. Participants can join the sessions to hear from industry experts and ask them questions to learn all about innovative biomaterials.
To find out more about the Masterclasses and how to apply; contact [email protected]
The GROW talent project has received funding from the Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking, under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the project Allthings.bioPRO, grant agreement N° 887070, as well as the support of the Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst.
