Copenhagen Fashion Week announced selection of the 30 semi-finalists name of the 2020 European Social Innovation Competition: Reimagine Fashion among over 760 entries from all over Europe.
Semi-finalists demonstrate innovation in new sustainable materials and processes, technological solutions and ways to challenge consumer behavior.
30 projects from 14 countries were selected from a field of 766 applications, by a Judging Panel comprising industry leaders from both the social innovation and sustainable fashion worlds. The semi-finalists are all early stage projects that are working towards changing the ways we produce, buy, use and recycle fashion and encouraging a sustainable change in consumer behaviour.
They will now receive expert assistance and support to further develop their ideas before meeting with the judging panel later this year to determine the 10 finalists and finally the three winners.
“Our plan to transition our fashion week is not new, but in the context of the pandemic crisis it is now more relevant and urgent than ever. Reassessing the role of fashion weeks and coming up with innovative solutions to become platforms for industry change is the only way forward, and I hope the jury sees the tremendous potential it holds,” states CEO of Copenhagen Fashion Week, Cecilie Thorsmark.
Commenting on the Semi-finalists, Slawomir Tokarski, Director of Innovation and Advanced Manufacturing, DG GROW, said: “Building on Europe’s position at the forefront of global fashion, this year’s European Social Innovation Competition set out to look for innovations that encourage more sustainability across the fashion industry. 766 applicants from across Europe and the Horizon 2020 associated countries answered our call and we’re really impressed with the variety of creative ideas they’ve come up with to help reimagine fashion for the better.”
The European Social Innovation Competition is a challenging award conducted by the European Commission across all European Union member countries and Horizon 2020 associated countries. Now, in its 8th year, the competition acts as a beacon for social innovators in Europe— employing a proven methodology for supporting early-stage ideas and facilitating the emerging of a network of radical innovators shaping our society for the better.
Reimagine Fashion:Meet the Semi-Finalists:
- ALMA (Italy)
A material innovation start-up, focused on finding sustainable components to create vegan leather. - BYBROWN’s Transposable Circular Raincoat (Netherlands)
A 100% recyclable, circular and durable raincoat that is to be distributed through a new consumption model. - ChoozFit (Romania)
A proprietary outfit recommendation engine for digital fashion brands that helps consumers make more sustainable choices. - Cultural Sustainability in Fashion (Romania)
Artisan-designer collaborations focused on reviving heritage European textile crafts. - Dyeluxe (Germany)
A method to transform natural colour pigments, derived from food by-products, into textile dyes. - Edith (Italy)
An app that offers personalised style tips and helps users to organise their wardrobes. - Fairbrics (France)
A technology that converts the CO2 emitted during fabric manufacturing into new synthetic fabrics. - Fluid Fashion Realities (Spain)
A system that allows users to match physical garments with digital projections of looks in real time. - Hempcell (Germany)
A start-up that is promoting premium European Hemp Lyocell fibres as a viable and sustainable textile alternative. - Kleiderly (Germany)
A start-up that turns recycled clothes into durable material used to make a range of products, from furniture to suitcases. - Love Your Denim (Italy)
A means to collect unwanted jeans and then turn them into a yarn from which cotton sweaters and jackets are produced. - MeuTeu Co-design Lab (Spain)
A sustainable fashion lab that uses co-design with consumers as an inclusive approach to create products that they really need. - MycoTEX (Netherlands)
An innovation to make custom-made clothes using a sustainable fabric made from mycelium, a substance found in mushroom roots. - MYFACTORI (United Kingdom)
An AI driven Operating System for on-demand distributed apparel manufacturing. - Novel Dyes for Water-free Dyeing of Biofibers (Sweden)
A start-up that is seeking to reduce water waste during fabric dyeing processes, by developing a CO2-based biofibre dye. - Post Carbon Fashion (United Kingdom)
Zero-waste and regenerative dyeing and coating services for textile applications through microbiological processes. - Pulp Fashion (France)
- Fashion made from low carbon footprint manufacturing processes, using an easily recyclable material: paper.
- RE-NT (Germany)
A digital platform that enables brands to rent out fashion products, track performance and recycle unwanted items. - Reinventing Copenhagen Fashion Week (Denmark)
An initiative to help transform the event into a platform for sustainable change in the fashion industry. - resortecs (Belgium)
Dissolvable stitching thread and heat-dismountable rivets that help make the reuse and recycling textile products easier - ROND: CO2 reduced soles from discarded fabric (Denmark)
Sweat and shock absorbent insoles made from fibers upcycled from discarded textiles. - SENSTILE: The future is tactile (Spain)
A search engine that identifies, matches, and compares textiles digitally and at scale. - Shuffle Swaps (Ireland)
A location based swap-shop platform built as a “dating site” for clothes, where users swipe, match and swap with others. - Snake (Croatia)
A digital commerce platform which applies augmented reality and enables development of digital fashion by changing the way fashion is consumed. - Style Your Stay (Portugal)
A rental marketplace for travellers, enabling them to rent clothing, shoes and accessories from local brands when they arrive at a new destination - Swap Shop (Slovenia)
A swap shop where consumers can trade unwanted clothes. Un-swapped items are then transformed into new, durable garments. - Vintage for a Cause (Portugal)
A collaborative upcycling platform that empowers women over the age of 50 in long term unemployment. - Vividye: Reversible colouring for textiles (Sweden)
A colour and textile printing technique that allows for prints to be removed from fabric, so that new ones can be applied. - WasteLess Fashion (Romania)
A zero-waste fashion system that enables designers to donate scrap fabric to fashion education institutions. - WoolWays (Romania)
Monetising waste wool by connecting shepherds to the yarn market and controlling the value chain from raw fiber to product.
