We are excited to announce the Mindful Fashion Circular Design Award, a sustainable design competition which launched on Monday June 26th!

The Award's media partner Viva announced the launch with a feature article outlining the challenges and opportunities that Mindful Fashion is seeking to address with this programme, and how the award will further advance Mindful Fashion New Zealand's mission to create an innovative, full-circle and thriving future for the clothing and textiles industry in Aotearoa New Zealand.⁠
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Brought to you by Mindful Fashion in partnership with the Gattung Foundation, the Mindful Fashion Circular Design Award challenges creatives to reimagine the fashion system in Aotearoa, using the dual lens of our unique place in the world and the circular economy, to find innovative ways to keep textiles in use.⁠

Viva reports on the collective desire for real, transformative change permeating the local fashion industry, and how circular solutions — innovations and systems that design out or repurpose potential waste — consider the future of fashion are gaining traction.

The ambitious initiative aims to inspire and support designers to reimagine how they approach and use textiles, and acknowledges exceptional work, underscored by both industry knowledge and mātauranga Māori and holistic and regenerative indigenous practices.

Notably, the awards are “place-based”, with entrants tasked with creating circular solutions to local and regional textile waste. The design brief (in full here) asks entrants to design and create a wearable outfit using textile waste alongside a plan for the garment’s life cycle.

The awards will be judged by respected industry figures: Business leader and philanthropist Theresa Gattung, Founder and CEO of Untouched World Peri Drysdale, Viva Creative and Fashion Director Dan Ahwa, Stylist and Viva contributor Chloe Hill, Textile Artist Maungarongo Ron Te Kawa and Emily Miller Sharma, co-founder of Mindful Fashion and General Manager of Ruby and Liam.

Mindful Fashion hopes the award programme will resource a cohort of design talent, while also inspiring wider change, shifting attitudes and, most importantly, sharing knowledge.

“The aim of our Circular Design Award is to inspire Kiwi creatives to reimagine how clothing is designed, made and circulated to keep these valuable resources in use,” says Jacinta FitzGerald, chief executive of Mindful Fashion. “Each year, millions of tonnes of clothing is produced, worn and thrown away, with more than 85 per cent not finding its way into recycling or circular systems.”

We are proud to have Viva as the media partner for the Mindful Fashion Circular Design Award who will be sharing more news about the initiative in the coming months.

You can read the full article here.

Applications for entry close July 21 - find out more about the Mindful Fashion Circular Design Award and how to enter here.