Style Pigeon: Final word of the Hempel Award 2013

In this year's competition helmets and hoods were a trending topic, I would say. In several collections the designer covered the head of the model. Its funny to see how these trends coming out of somewhere are unconsciously followed/interpreted from Canada to China.

In a fashion show "the bigger the better" works well and to achieve a show stopper wide hemlines and extensive use of fabric will help. At first I felt tiny among all those big creations, but finally when seeing my clothes on models I was calm, because I liked what I saw. I liked my designs and the style of them, but I have to admit now being myself there in the competition that I should have exaggerated more. Instead of spending something like 50 euros for ribbons I should have spent 150 euros for them. Instead of focusing to wearability I should have been focusing on to create more a "show stopper" -collection. For some reason I thought the competition would have been more towards industrial collections, but clearly it wasn't.

On the next day of the runaway few members of the jury had a public chat and they explained what they looked after when selecting the winners. The clothes had to be well made (I was a bit surprised of this), they should be wearable (good, good!), not too industrial or realistic, but also not too absurd either. They also sought after innovation of some sort. The winners this year had innovation in material, combination of material (plastic and fabric) and then two collections had used leather in a bit new way. I really appreciate that afterwards we received some kind of feedback of what was good and what could be improved and finally I was also happy that I hadn't put any helmets on my models heads. Too big isn't good either.

Below I attach photos of my clothes, few making ofs and some pics of my favorite collections.

Models getting their make up

Rehearsal (stage is still covered with a carpet), I was competitor nro 20

The front texture of the trousers turned out well.

When sewing the clothes the black dress with its ribbon details was actually my favorite, but then on stage the dress looked really tiny and you really couldn't see or appreciate the black ribbon details.

Lights off and models out of stage.

Nro 7 Tania Dasilva from Canada with this simple but well coordinated wool clothes.

Adorable feathers and beautifully textured fabrics from Nro 25 Maya Guerrero Rivas from El Salvador (and who is studying here in Barcelona in Felicidad Duce).