Katiuscia Gregoire, Kim Yeong-hyeon and Christian Padilla, are named new winners of the 7th International BIAAF Contest for emerging fashion talent.
Outstanding creativity and the future of fashion came together in Bilbao at the 7th Bilbao International Art & Fashion Contest (BIAAF), which awarded its prizes on November 12th in the Edificio Ensanche. This year, the contest has overcome a series of difficulties, and has maintained its firm commitment to young talent and to continuing to generate opportunities, something "now more necessary than ever and decisive in order to offer them a more promising scenario than the current one", as highlighted by the organisation.
More than 1,250 promising young talents, coming from 90 different countries, have taken part in this edition, which announced its awards live with a streaming broadcasted on November 12th, from the Edificio Ensanche in Bilbao.
An exhibition at the Edificio Ensanche, from 12th to 16th November, brought together the works of the 30 finalists. The winners of each category, chosen by an international jury with representatives from the LVMH Fashion Group, Vogue Talents and Balenciaga Museum have competed for the awards.
The 30 finalists have been chosen from among 1,262 proposals, coming from young talents from 90 countries on all 5 continents. Katiuscia Gregoire (Parsons, U.S.A.) was awarded for the 'Best Outfit Design' with her collection “Hood Dandy”. Kim Yeonghyeon (Kookmin University, South Korea) was awarded for the ‘Best Accessory Design' with her collection “Hideey _Dynamics”, both worth 10,000 Euros. In addition, a special prize recognised the work of the 'Best Emerging Basque Designer', Christian Padilla, worth 5,000 Euros with his collection “Huasi”.
This year's works have been marked by different artistic and cultural references, such as the sculptures of Richard Serra, the photographic series 'The Americans' by Robert Frank, the architectural work of Santiago Calatrava, the novel 'Heart of Darkness' by Joseph Conrad, the painter Claude Monet and the 'concept of the diagram' by the French philosopher Deleuze. All of these proposals show "the decisive role of emerging designers in a world that is changing", as the organization highlights.
After the awards ceremony, an exhibition curated by Zorrozúa y Asociados in the Atrium of the Ensanche Building brought together, from November 12th -16th, the 30 finalist works, which have been chosen by an international jury made up of representatives from institutions such as the LVMH Fashion Group, Vogue Talents or the Balenciaga Museum, among other personalities.
"Edition after edition, among the proposals we see avant-garde and trends that materialize in commercial collections that will be seen in catwalks years later," says the organization of BIAAF, which highlights the commitment that the city of Bilbao makes with each edition of the event "for the creative industries and for an innovative model that brings together art, design, technology and sustainability in a transversal way”.
The close link between fashion, art and culture is precisely the thread of BIAAF's activity, which, in addition to holding a biannual competition, works to support the work of young designers, give them visibility and offer them a platform to start their careers.
Throughout the 7 editions of the contest, more than 6,000 promising young designers have had a window in Bilbao to show their designs to the world.
About BIAAF
Bilbao International Art and Fashion (BIAAF) is a platform that, with Art and Fashion as its stage, and with young designers as its protagonists, seeks to promote values such as creativity, entrepreneurship, internationalisation, innovation or sustainability.
Its most visible activity, the biannual international fashion design contest, reaches its seventh edition this year 2020, giving hundreds of fashion designers the opportunity to express themselves as they are, to express their personal imagery and to make them known to the world. At the same time, alongside international benchmarks, it also promotes training, thanks to scholarship programmes or master classes created 'ad hoc' to cover their needs.
This year, in the context of the contest, BIAAF has launched the campaign 'Fashion Is Not Just Fashion', with the aim of making visible, promoting and highlighting the different projects developed in fields such as research, high performance education or sustainability, all of which have emerged through the opportunities generated by the competition. Thus, every year, the platform develops high impact initiatives in the creative industries, hand in hand with key agents such as the Provincial Council of Bizkaia, the City Council of Bilbao and BBK Fundazioa.
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