The Winners of The European Fashion Award FASH 2015

Tomasz Szadel, Lukas Fischer, Julia Kleeblatt, Kai Gerhardt, Lilly Bosse, Ulf Brauner © Franco P. Tettamanti / SDBI

The Winners of The European Fashion Award FASH 2015 were selected.
The awards will be announced in 2015.

For two days a jury consisting of international experts from design, industry, retail, communication and the media evaluated the winners of the European Fashion Award FASH 2015 according to predetermined criteria. The international jury consisted of the following members:

International Jury
Margareta van den Bosch, Creative Advisor H&M
Torsten Hochstetter, Global Creative Director, Puma
Dr. Adelheid Rasche, Chief Curator, National Museums in Berlin
Joachim Schirrmacher, Creative Consultant, Berlin
Michael Sontag, Designer, Berlin
Franco P. Tettamanti, Fashion & Portrait Photographer, Paris

141 Participants from 26 countries
141 participants from 26 countries entered the global competition. While there were few truly exceptional submissions in the past years, this year the jury was pleasantly surprised by the mature personalities of the winners. Yet another surprise was that only 30 percent of the 125 entered projects were exclusively womenswear collections, the remainder was equally balanced between unisex and menswear collections.

Winners European Fashion Award FASH 2015
(these are NOT nominations):

Category Students:
Lilly Bosse, Hochschule für Künste Bremen / University of the Arts Bremen
Kai Gerhardt, Universität der Künste Berlin / University of the Arts Berlin
Julia Kleeblatt, Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle / University of Art and Design, Halle

Category Graduates:
Ulf Brauner, Universität der Künste Berlin / University of the Arts Berlin
Lukas Fischer, Fachhochschule Bielefeld / University of Applied Sciences Bielefeld
Tomasz Szadel, Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee

Unconventional and fresh
The projects submitted to the European Fashion Award FASH 2015 reflected very personal characteristics in their translation of the topic “Freedom” resulting in very subtle collections. Almost all winners focused on freedom of design: whether in terms of personal dreams and experiences, or the longing for spiritual freedom. This requires courage. Courage to follow one’s own impulses. Courage to say no. Courage to create a clear design language. Still this courage has its rewards, as this purely intuitive level yields considerably stronger and more impressive projects than purely professional processes.

To the heart of our desires
This energy is transmitted. The winning collections trigger feelings and inspire us to think; no matter whether we view, wear or read the concepts. The winners of the European Fashion Award FASH 2015 and their energy provide meaningful pointers for the market and its increasingly standardized character: they get to the heart of our desires, and are heralds of a new era.

Professional photography
A photo session at one of Europe’s most exclusive photo studios, Delight Rental Studios at Backfabrik at Alexanderplatz in Berlin, documented the winning collections of the European Fashion Award FASH 2015 in mid-November. SDBI was able to win the cooperation of Franco P. Tettamanti for this task. The multi-award-winning fashion and portrait photographer from Paris has worked for clients such as Dior, Louis Vuitton, Akris, Vivienne Westwood, Universal Music, Madame Figaro or Prestige Magazine Hong Kong.
The fashion shoot, in addition to the cash prizes, is an important component of the award. The photos will be published in a catalog and at sdbi.de following the award presentation in 2015. A separate invitation to the award ceremony will follow.

The European Fashion Award FASH
The European Fashion Award FASH is considered one of the world’s most important endorsement awards for fashion design students. It is an annual competition held by the not-for-profit German Fashion Industry Foundation, Stiftung der Deutschen Bekleidungsindustrie, in short SDBI. Thanks to the European Fashion Award FASH, its communication, publications and extensive industry network SDBI plays a groundbreaking role for students, design and industry. Klaus Steilmann, at the time Europe’s largest manufacturer of women’s fashion, founded SDBI in 1978.

SDBI award winners have excellent career chances. Today, many of them work at internationally renowned companies, such as Adidas, Akris, Craft, Drykorn, Esprit, John Galliano, Girbaud, Gore, Hugo Boss, Mango, Quiksilver, Puma, Schumacher, Strenesse, for designers like Lala Berlin, Wolfgang Joop, Ross Lovegrove, Antonio Marras, Vivienne Westwood or Bernhard Willhelm – some of them even at chief or senior designer level. Furthermore, many of them have been honored with additional awards.