This is the second year of the awards, where designers and businesses from around Aotearoa New Zealand are challenged to showcase innovative ways to keep materials in use.
The awards also asked entrants to think about their unique place in the world and use circular economy principles to guide their work.
Handed out at a gala event in Auckland’s Newmarket, the awards are an initiative from Mindful Fashion New Zealand, an industry collective fostering a thriving local fashion industry that embraces ethical, responsible and sustainable practices.
The panel of 10 judges include a number of well known business and fashion leaders, including Dame Theresa Gattung, Marilou Dadat, creative director of Kowtow Clothing, Deanna Didovich, creative director of Ruby and Sue Anderson, head of product at Trade Me.
Four creations took out this year’s top honours, sharing in a $50k prize pool:
Creative Excellence in Circular Design
The Award for Creative Excellence in Circular Design went to Jacqueline Tsang. Her look, titled ‘Fabric has Memory’ redesigns obsolete coffee sacks sourced from local cafes, damaged kimonos and vintage tapestries, to create a high fashion luxury outfit.
Material Innovation
Sue Prescott won the Award for Material Innovation for her entry titled ‘Southerly Change’. Prescott’s design incorporated 95% sail-cloth waste, locally sourced from Wellington. The final look offers both protection and joy through use of colour and silhouette and shows that once a fabric reaches the end of its intended first life, it still has life to live.
Excellence from a Rising Talent in Circular Design
Ella Fidler’s design titled ‘Scrap Yarn’ won the Award for Excellence from a Rising Talent in Circular Design. Fidler assessed the full life cycle of her fabric and chose waste from the production process that would be recyclable at the end of its new life.
Circular Business Innovation Award
The winner of the Circular Business Innovation Award, a new addition in 2024, was Untouched World. Its Rubbish Socks initiative stood out to judges for fully embodying the pillars of circularity. Data provided in the entry shows an outstanding 99% textile waste recycling rate. In the last year, Untouched World has diverted over 1 tonne of textile waste, recycled through various streams, including Rubbish Socks.
Jacinta FitzGerald, Mindful Fashion Chief Executive said this year the judging panel was impressed by the overall high quality of work from entrants.
“Our Supreme winners treated their chosen textiles as precious resources and used them to produce an outcome of greater value, treating them not as a limitation but as a starting point for innovation,” says FitzGerald.
“Encouragingly, we noticed an increased focus on tackling industry and business waste streams and thoroughly enjoyed understanding how each designer had chosen to take on the challenge.”
