A prize money of Rs 20 lakh awaits the winner of India's first sustainability award in fashion, a venture by the UN Environment agency and Reliance among others.
The winner will be selected on January 31, from eight designers shortlisted out of almost thousand entries from across the country. The winning designer also gets to present the collection at the next Lakme Fashion Week (Winter).
Titled 'The Circular Design Challenge,' the contest requires designers to create a collection using materials from diverse sources of waste. The contest was billed circular as the designers had to incorporate circular components in their design through the application of circular-design principles and thereby demonstrate a positive impact on the environment. The jury evaluated and scored on usage of waste in their collection, fashion and aesthetic quotient, business viability as well as scalability.
“(The contest will help) in re-thinking how we design our products for their next use—not for 'end of life,' but rather 'end of use,” said Yuri Afanasiev, the UN resident coordinator in India.
The eight designers, shortlisted based on their innovations, include the likes of Saltpetre, a Delhi-based label by designer Pooja who used circular green gold fabric made out of recycled PET bottles and buttons made from coconut shells, as well as Liffaffa by Kanika Ahuja which used hemp, recycled polythene and discarded industrial fabric, and Aiman Sabiri, who has created shirts from cutting waste collected from garment manufacturers and scrap dealers.
“This initiative will provide enormous opportunities for fashion designers and the entire textile value chain to exhibit their innovative ideas, designs with a focus on...sustainability,” said Vipul Shah, chief operating officer (petrochemicals) of Reliance Industries, one of the main collaborators of this initiative.
“(This is) a perfect opportunity to promote sustainable textile production and consumption,” added Atul Bagai, country head (India) of UN Environment.