New designer receives talent award
Ashna Patel had barely received her Design School Kolding diploma before she had to leave the graduation ceremony and exhibition opening and rush to Aarhus to attend the Salling Future Friendly Fashion Award 2020. For the first time, Salling gave out awards focusing on sustainable fashion brands and talents.
At Salling Rooftop, on top of the shopping centre in the centre of Aarhus, the new Design for Planet designer was awarded Talent of the Year. Ashna Patel won for her graduation project, which focuses on the environment, business models and production methods. By hosting and facilitating workshops she was able to explore and identify how consumers achieve an emotional connection with their clothes and so prolong the period of use.
The Jury said:
- Ashna Patel has addressed key areas in sustainable fashion, which makes her a frontrunner within the industry. Local production, natural materials and design based on consumer insights are just a few of the essential elements in Ashna’s graduation project that ought to be widely implemented. Ashna has demonstrated an ability to navigate wisely, while mastering the ability to create aesthetically pleasing design to be enjoyed by the user.
The award is presented to a student or new designer who excels in innovative design and uses sustainability to drive their vision and creative process. The talents are nominated by the Danish design schools VIA design, KADK, DSKD and KEA.
Ulla Ræbild heads the Design for Planet programme, which is part of the MA programme at Design School Kolding. She is thrilled about the award and the obvious relevance of the programme:
- Design School Kolding has a long-standing tradition for working with sustainable design. Ashna’s project comprises the core elements of our school’s particular approach to sustainability: to work with sustainability using design methods such as user-involvement and prototyping in combination with imagination and systematic understanding embedded in aesthetic and technical skills. Many people can point to problems related to sustainability. Few people can come up with the solutions. At Design School Kolding we research and train with the goal to make people and society in general able to create solutions that people can and will in fact use. Ashna Patel shows a new path for the fashion industry. By opening up the design process and inviting others in, she successfully establishes meaningful relationships within the value chain between material producers, suppliers and fashion users. In an interview with Rector Lene Tanggaard, she refers to the role ’Designer as Host’.
With the new award Salling hopes to encourage winners and nominees to maintain their focus on sustainable fashion and hopefully inspire other brands and designers. Salling Future Fashion Awards will take place again in 2021.
Ashna Patel’s graduation project is currently on display online and at the Museum at Koldinghus along with more than 100 other graduation projects by Design School Kolding graduates. The exhibition closes on 22 November.
