No. 1 / January 2006

European Design Contest for the Next Generation Held by the German Apparel Industry Foundation

• Participation three times higher than in 2005 with 110 works from 10 countries
• Four of five prizewinners and projects are from East Germany
• Students demand more social responsibility and fair production
• New seriousness in the designs

“Local – Global” is the topic of the European-wide prize of the German Apparel Industry Foundation 2006. The goal of the foundation founded in 1977 is pioneering promotion of the next generation. Although fashion has always been globally oriented, there have been special regional characteristics and national design cultures till today. Designs were sought, which are based in the regions where designers live. The task was to combine these local elements into new, up-to-date and globally attractive symbols, which could represent an attitude and identity in the market. Entries were also requested for a special “Fashion and Brand” prize, which was awarded in collaboration with the brand consulting company Interbrand Zintzmeyer & Lux.
A jury composed of internationally experienced experts from design, industry, marketing, media and commerce selected the prizewinners according to set criteria. There was a great deal of surprise when the jury announced its selections. Although participation with 110 Master’s theses and college projects from 165 participants from 10 countries was three times higher this year than in 2005, four of the five winning projects and prizewinners come from the former East Germany. And the team from Switzerland is composed of two industrial designers and one media designer.

Prize of the German Apparel Industry Foundation 2006

1st Prize
Bianca Koczan, Burg Giebichenstein – College for Art and Design Halle – 3,000 euros, six-month internship at René Lezard 2. Prize: Madeleine Einhoff, University of Art Berlin, Germany – 1,500 euros

2nd Prize
Cornelia Ohlendorf, Burg Giebichenstein – College for Art and Design, Halle – Fashion Design

3rd Prize
Daniel Gaffner, Isabelle Hauser, Benjamin Matzek, Argau College, Switzerland – 1,000 euros, six-month paid internship at Schöffel

Special Award Fashion Branding
Anja Hasenstein, Mainz College, 500 euros, six-month paid internship at Interbrand Zintzmeyer & Lux

Thanks to the support of ispovision, the prizewinners will receive additional communication services such as a trade fair booth and the award ceremony within the framework of ispovision. Consequently, they will present their work to approx. 55,000 trade visitors and more than 2,000 international journalists. The award-winning works and the reasons given by the jury are in the appendix.

Jury’s Report
It is very nice to see that the submitted works are not clouded by clichés. A woman, whose finds meaning in life in shopping, does not play any role in the analyses. The students take the needs of people seriously, regardless of whether it is a question of overweight youths, “especially well-fitting clothing for normal figures”, clothing for the generation 50+ or simply clothing, which is “unostentatious, unassuming and seen as a matter of course”. The target groups of the students have become much older over the past year. Designs were for people 25 at the oldest in the past, but today the focal age is 30 and much older. Overall, there is a considerable search for a new seriousness among the students. While there is still much protection of vested rights in society, existing relations in society are questioned to a great extent using fashion. Formulations, which criticize the big fashion brands, are found again and again in the analyses: “meaningless terms are printed on clothing”, “fashion trends are striving to ape past decades”, “random mixture of trends” and “customers are confused and are searching for genuine values”. There are complaints about the “similarity of styles” or “lost distinctions between brands”. But changes in consumer behavior due to “increasing conformity under the pressure of unwritten dress codes” were also observed: “The personal touch was lost faced with the obligation to present oneself properly to employers.” The topic of many submitted works was the demand to respect one’s own style of life and native place. This also included a “social contract” on the part of companies, responsibility for the environment and fair production conditions. This was not intended primarily as an incentive to buy, but instead as an urgently required obligation, as a basis on which brands should be based. The submitted concepts then also read like political manifestos in part: “We see traditional values disappearing and demand they be respected again: honesty, fairness, trust and friendship” and “Young people are maturing and realizing how they are being deceived in the free market economy.” Others question “why is a brand only accepted as a good brand if it is expensive,” and propose “buying with circumspection, abstention and modesty.” An “alternative to superficial fashion and the large, global brands” is sought in the designs. This struggle becomes especially clear in the winning work by Bianca Koczan, who fulfills the objectives of this contest in an ideal way. Her analysis documented as a newspaper not only results in a strategic decision about a collection and a new business model, but also in a collection that breaks with the apparent simplicity of work clothing types in an intelligent and ironic manner. She created a very varied but stringent collection, which is rich in references. Extremely Varied National Influences The vitas of the students make it clear that national borders are only significant to a limited extent. Born in one country, grew up in the next, and studied in a third one. This is almost the norm, not an exception. Work at the colleges is also international. For example, Hanover College collaborates with the China Academy of Art in Zhe Jiang. This variety also results in some students struggling to find their own identity. But on the other hand, the continual shifts of context result in completely new cultural competence and consequently much more complex dealing with their own identity. The “local constriction”, which “was experienced not just geographically but also culturally”, is connected in a productive conflict with the global expanse of today’s world without denial of one’s roots. This ambivalence, e.g., between conservative strictness and liberal openness, results in a more subtly differentiated understanding of fashion than is common in the industry today. This duality is celebrated in many designs as something that has been more or less disrupted. There is a great deal of interest in role playing and ironic disruptions. Many pieces of clothing can be changed because “flexibility, freedom and change are things we are attracted to.” This clothing also puts new demands on customers. “The composition of appearance requires a self-confident user,” is how it is stated in one concept. This new cultural competence also explains why projects and prizewinners from East Germany are represented in such numbers although there was such considerable international participation. Whoever is from East Germany or studied there is forced to confront his or her own identity in a much more intensive way. Although these areas of friction were only perceived as a problem by German society in the past, now we can see what strength can grow out of a crisis. Special Fashion and Brand Prize Fashion creates identity, and identity is considered a competitive strategy of the future. In spite of this great significance, there has been surprisingly little known about how these identities can be structured strategically in the field of tension of continual change in fashion and the required continuity of brands. This was seen clearly in the 16 submitted works, none of which fulfilled the demands. Consequently, the jury decided to award only a distinction. To compensate for this, the German Apparel Industry Foundation is going to offer a workshop at ispo summer in collaboration with the brand consulting company Interbrand Zintzmeyer & Lux.

Media contact:
Gunther Bauer
Manager Marketing and Communication
Consumer Goods, Messe München GmbH
gunther.bauer@messe-muenchen.de
Tel.: (+49 89) 949 20 610 

Joachim Schirrmacher
Member of the Advisory Board of the German Apparel Industry Foundation
mail@joachim-schirrmacher.de
Tel.: (+49 40) 253 18 860