7th International BIAAF Contest

Posted on: 10. November 2020

Outstanding creativity and passion for fashion prevail at the 7th International BIAAF Contest, betting on talent “now more than ever”

  • The organization reinforces its commitment to generating an innovative future and to ensuring that talent, cutting-edge training, creativity and work open up opportunities for young, internationally connected designers

 

  • More than 1,250 promising young talents, coming from 90 different countries, have taken part in the current edition of the contest, which will announce its awards live with a streaming broadcast on November 12th, from the Edificio Ensanche in Bilbao

 

  • An exhibition at the Edificio Ensanche, from 12th to 16th November, will bring together the works of the 30 finalists, chosen by an international jury with representatives from the LVMH group, Vogue and Balenciaga Museum and who will compete for the awards of ‘Best Garment Design’, ‘Best Accessory Design’ and ‘Best Emerging Basque Designer’

 

 

 

Bilbao, November 6th 2020. Outstanding creativity and the future of fashion come together in Bilbao at the 7th Bilbao International Art And Fashion Contest (BIAAF), which will award its prizes on November 12th in the Edificio Ensanche. This year, the contest has overcome a series of difficulties, and has maintained its firm commitment to young talent and to continuing to generate opportunities, something “now more necessary than ever and decisive in order to offer them a more promising scenario than the current one”, as highlighted by the organisation.

The awards ceremony will be broadcast by streaming, and will thusly comply with all the health prevention and seating measures and allow “above all, to share such a special moment with all those who have made it possible for this unique edition to take place”, the organisers point out.

“Each collection received from the finalist designers has been a small triumph, a battle won in an extremely complicated situation,” stresses the BIAAF organisation, which points out that “each and every one of these collections is a reflection both of an exceptional edition”, which will be difficult to forget, and of BIAAF’s commitment to emerging designers. “Together, we hope to build a different future; one that is more humane, inclusive, supportive and sustainable”, they highlight.

The 30 finalists have been chosen from among 1,262 proposals, coming from young talents from 90 countries on all 5 continents, and they are all eligible for the ‘Best Outfit Design’ and ‘Best Accessory Design’ prizes, both worth 10,000 Euros. In addition, a special prize will recognise the work of the ‘Best Emerging Basque Designer’, an award of 5,000 Euros.

After the awards ceremony, an exhibition in the Atrium of the Ensanche Building will bring together, from November 12th -16th, the 30 finalist works, which have been chosen by an international jury made up of representatives from institutions such as the LVMH group, Vogue or the Balenciaga Museum.

Students from fashion schools such as the Royal College of Arts, Central Saint Martin’s, IED, Parsons, FIT, Bunka Gakuen University and Shenkar, as well as young local talents, have been selected as finalists in this edition of the contest. The edition and their works have been marked by confinement, with difficulties in accessing the fabrics and textile workshops where they would give shape to their designs.

This year’s works has been marked by different artistic and cultural references, such as the sculptures of Richard Serra, the photographic series ‘The Americans’ by Robert Frank, the architectural work of Santiago Calatrava, the novel ‘Heart of Darkness’ by Joseph Conrad, the painter Claude Monet and the ‘concept of the diagram’ by the French philosopher Deleuze. All of these proposals show “the decisive role of emerging designers in a world that is changing”, as the organization highlights.

“Edition after edition, among the proposals we see avant-garde and trends that materialize in commercial collections that will be seen in catwalks years later,” says the organization of BIAAF, which highlights the commitment that the city of Bilbao makes with each edition of the event “for the creative industries and for an innovative model that brings together art, design, technology and sustainability in a transversal way”.

The close link between fashion, art and culture is precisely the thread of BIAAF’s activity, which, in addition to holding a biannual competition, works to support the work of young designers, give them visibility and offer them a platform to start their careers.

Throughout the 7 editions of the contest, more than 6,000 promising young designers have had a window in Bilbao to show their designs to the world.

More than fashion

Bilbao International Art And Fashion (BIAAF) is a platform that, with Art and Fashion as its stage, and with young designers as its protagonists, seeks to promote values such as creativity, entrepreneurship, internationalisation, innovation or sustainability.

Its most visible activity, the biannual international fashion design contest, reaches its seventh edition this year 2020, giving hundreds of fashion designers the opportunity to express themselves as they are, to express their personal imagery and to make them known to the world. At the same time, alongside international benchmarks, it also promotes training, thanks to scholarship programmes or master classes created ‘ad hoc’ to cover their needs.

This year, in the context of the contest, BIAAF has launched the campaign ‘Fashion Is Not Just Fashion’, with the aim of making visible, promoting and highlighting the different projects developed in fields such as research, high performance education or sustainability, all of which have emerged through the opportunities generated by the competition. Thus, every year, the platform develops high impact initiatives in the creative industries, hand in hand with key agents such as the Provincial Council of Bizkaia, the City Council of Bilbao and BBK Fundazioa.

 

 

We have the pleasure to invite you to virtually attend our Awards Ceramony and Final Exhibition Virtual Tour and share such dear moment for us with all Unesco Design Cities through this link. –>

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FURTHER INFORMATION

Kepa Jon Martínez Barañano

Aideac Comunicación

kepamartinez@aideac.com

www.aideac.com