First Challenge the Fabric Award to launch at LFW

A new fashion award for emerging designers that celebrates creativity
and opens up a dialogue about viscose as alternative fabric is to launch
during London Fashion Week.

The Challenge the Fabric Award, which aims to celebrate creativity and
sustainable progression, has been organised by the Swedish Fashion Council,
in partnership with Ekman and Co, and contributing partners, Altri, Arauco,
Sanyou Group, and Södra.

The award set to be presented at a catwalk show on September 13, ahead
of London Fashion Week, features six designers from around the globe
competing for a 30,000 euro prize and includes two London-based designers
Harry Freegard studying at Central St. Martins and Paolo Carzana from the
University of Westminster.

The other finalists are: Brandon Wen of Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine
Arts; Christine-Marie Valtonen of Helsinki’s Aalto University, Anna Bernal
of Arnhem’s ArtEZ, and Elena Velez of New York Parsons School.

Each of the finalists will present a selection of their BA collection
alongside newly designed viscose looks to a jury of fashion experts, which
includes Swedish designer Ann-Sofie Back, founder and designer of Vyner
Articles Heikki Salonen, The Gentlewoman’s editor-in-chief Penny Martin,
Diet Prada’s founders Tony Liu and Lindsey Schuyler, Re-Edition magazine’s
editor in chief Jo Barker, Instagram magazine Th_Rlty_Shw founder Tiffany
Godoy, and cloud-rap artist and designer known as Ecco2K, Zak
Arogundade.

“This is the first international fashion award launched by the Swedish
Fashion Council, connecting young creatives with the industry and across
disciplines to create awareness, to push limits and to improve the fashion
industry in the long run. We are very excited about the outstanding talent
in this first edition,” said Jennie Rosén, chief executive of the Swedish
Fashion Council in a statement.

In addition to the catwalk show, there will be a complementary
exhibition presenting the viscose looks of Zhenyuan Yang of Beijing
Institute of Fashion Technology, Yiyuan Sun of Donghua University and Kajsa
Willumsen of the Swedish School of Textiles.