Submission:
The Culture & Heritage Award is open to all final year students, from all backgrounds, across all fashion courses registered under GFF membership who wish to embrace difference. This award has two pathways, each with its own award:
Culture & Heritage Award Non-Design – Projects within portfolios and publications, such as marketing projects, magazine publications, photoshoots, and research projects.
Culture & Heritage Award Design – Projects with a 3D outcome such as clothing collections, footwear, and accessories. These still need to be accompanied by a portfolio and body of work.
The Graduate Fashion Foundation acknowledges global race inequalities and the impact that they can have on the lived experiences of people of colour. This award has been created to give students a platform to promote an awareness of the vital global conversations that address race and ethnicity. It aims to embrace and acknowledge other experiences and cultures while highlighting the limited representation of people of colour within the fashion industry. The award is intended to give students the confidence to open conversations and highlight underrepresented areas. The award will celebrate and acknowledge work that demonstrates an enhanced knowledge and understanding of the topic.
The work must reflect a culturally informed perspective that challenges race inequalities and celebrates the global contributions made by people of colour. The winning work must provide a refreshing and innovative direction that addresses race and ethnicity about the lived experiences of people of colour and the following:
Celebrates the influence of culture and heritage on a student’s work
Explores historical, political, contextual knowledge and understanding
Protests against racial inequality and injustice
Criteria:
A strong focus on culture and heritage
Visionary thinking, passion and courage
Authentic, resourceful, creative enquiry
Opinion-led with extensive research or fashion commentary
Celebrate global conversations
An initial digital submission of no more than 15x pages for the nomination shortlisting. The full physical body of work and/or samples will be displayed for the final judging session. The nomination can be a maximum of 10mb, illustrating the final project and a supporting statement.
Process:
The Culture and Heritage awards will be judged in two stages. All nominated students will have to submit a supporting statement for scrutiny at the pre-event shortlisting by industry experts.
Part 1:
Monday 20th May 2024, 18:00 hours - Deadline for submission, academic staff are to nominate 2 final year students.
Selection:
An Industry expert will shortlist 12 students from the entries submitted. Thursday 30th May, 2024 - The names of the shortlisted students will be announced.
Part 2 - Judging:
Awards Judging will be onsite at GFW in central London. Shortlisted students must bring their full entry for the final judging. This can be physical work plus digital elements if required. The judging will be an opportunity to talk through the students work, ideas and answer questions from the judges.
All nominated students must attend the full judging day during GFW and ensure they attend all talks, meetings and judging sessions as well as the end of day Awards Presentation and celebratory networking event. Winners will receive promotion across the GFF networks.