Redress, the environmental charity working to reduce fashion’s waste, has named menswear designer Le Ngoc Ha Thu from Vietnam and womenswear designer Juliana Garcia Bello of Argentina as winners of the Redress Design Awards 2020. The Redress Design Award (formerly the EcoChic Design Award) is the world’s largest sustainable fashion design competition. Organised 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.
They work to educate designers about fashion’s negative environmental impacts, whilst inspiring them to use the core sustainable design techniques of zero-waste, up-cycling and reconstruction to cut waste out of fashion. Through their lectures, Academies, online LEARN platform and educational work in partnership with more than 100 universities around the world, Redress provide young designers with the theory and techniques to help them understand the new circular economy and capitalise on its global potential for the fashion industry.
The competition engaged entries from hundreds of applicants from 48 countries, with the judges picking out two main winners, who have been awarded sustainable design collaboration prizes with global leaders, VF Corporation’s Timberland and award-winning upcycled brand, The R Collective.
“These last few weeks with the Redress Design Award has been such a nourishing and beneficial experience and joining the Timberland and VF teams is going to be an honour. They are such an amazing brand when it comes to sustainability – I am ready to learn everything I can from them”,said Menswear winner, Le Ngoc Ha Thu.
The Redress Design Award 2020 runner-up prize with Orsola de Castro was awarded to Ruth Weerasinghe from Sri Lanka, who holds a BA (Hons) Degree in Fashion Design and Marketing from Northumbria University via the Academy of Design in Colombo, Sri Lanka, while the Hong Kong best prize winner was Grace Lant, a graduate from Central Saint Martins.
“I have learned so much during my participation in the Redress Design Award and have definitely come out of this with a reinforced feeling that collaboration is the key. We designers need to share our strengths and be inspired by each other to keep finding solutions to the mounting levels of textile waste”, said Womenswear winner, Juliana Garcia Bello.
The winners and runner-ups, along with the other finalists, took part in a “gruelling series of virtual design and business challenges,” in the two weeks leading up to the live grand final in Hong Kong, which focused on real-life sustainability business cases with a spotlight on Covid-19 impacted waste, supported by VF Corporation and TAL Group, makers of one in six dress shirts in the US.
