25.10.10

2010 New Designer Fashion Grand Prix

The Grand Prix

Just last week the 2010 New Designer Fashion Grand Prix took place at Tokyo Fashion Week. Over the years this initiative has come to be considered the life blood of Japanese fashion yet has remained an international affair as schools from sixty-one different countries took part this year.

The finalists are chosen when their design is still in the skecthbook stage and selection moves them into production for the final runway judgement.

This year Yuya Miura was awarded the Grand Prix prize. Yuya's womenswear design was based on George de la Tour's Candle-light and it's era drawings. As such the design contrasted light and dark reminding me of sunset. While the kimono-esque silhouette gave the garment a restrained freedom.

However the Grand Prix was not the only award of the event. Yuya Onishi and Yukihiro Togo were awarded the Womenswear Prize Excellence for their designs inspired by the traditional Japanese papercraft of denguri. The pair applied it's principles of folding to cloth to create three-dimensional designs. While the Menswear Prize Excellence went HanChul Lee who melded Native-American prints with futurism.

Five designers also received the Workmanship prize. These included Takuya Isagawa's 'Magritte', Takayuki Abe's 'Evolution', Ahn Kyung Ho's 'Mutant', Chiaki Nakanose and Aya Osuka's 'Divinity' while Kunihiro Masuda explored the 'Boundary Surface'.

This competition in my opinion reiterates the wealth of undergraduate talent out there and makes me excited for February when the next set of graduate collections shall start appearing.

Images courtesy of Fashion Grand Prix

Posted by Susan Walsh

Tags: 2010 New Designer Fashion Grand Prix Fashion Japan