The Imagining Sustainable Fashion Award invites people to create an avant-garde project that respects people and the planet, that defines the values of sustainable fashion
ISFA – Imagining Sustainable Fashion Award 2023
The Imagining Sustainable Fashion Award (ISFA) is the international competition born out of the collaboration between Connecting Cultures, the foundation that guides the Out of Fashion platform, and C.L.A.S.S., the international eco-hub that since 2007 has been advocating for a new generation of fashion in which the union of design, innovation, communication, and responsibility shapes a conscious and competitive business, capable of playing both an economic and social role.
ISFA invites stylists, photographers, designers, illustrators and artists to create visual imagery, an avant-garde project that highlights awareness, respect for people and the planet that defines the values of sustainable fashion in the fashion system.
The Sustainable Fashion Award 2023 launch was scheduled via webinar in October 2022. The deadline for submissions is Wednesday, January 25, 2023 at midnight. This award is open to creatives worldwide with an interest and understanding of sustainable fashion, including stylists, photographers, designers, illustrators and artists.
C.L.A.S.S. and Connecting Cultures: young ambassadors
The Imagining Sustainable Fashion Award 2023 relies on young ambassadors who will promote the award through their communication channels: Ren Collective, a nonprofit organization supporting brands, micro-businesses, professionals and students who want to integrate sustainable practices into their activities or education.
Iris Skrami, CEO and co-founder of Renoon, the platform that enables companies & consumers to engage around transparency and the impact of products from an app or directly within companies’ websites, one of the year’s rising startups, reaching more than two million people every month and aggregating hundreds of brands, 70+ of which have verified their claims.
Valentina Suarez, Co-Founder and director of the Latin American sustainable fashion movement Universo MOLA, a program of the Entre Soles y Lunas Foundation.
Vishal Tolambia, Founder of Humanity-Centered Designs, researcher in the field of sustainability in textiles and fashion, winner of the 2022 award with the project Fashion Affair.
ROICATM by Asahi Kasei is one of two Main Sponsors of the award. The second Main Sponsor is BembergTM by Asahi Kasei, Also supporting the project are SUPREME GREEN COTTON® by Varvaressos and ECOSENSORTM by Asahi Kasei Advance.
Lampoon in conversation with Giusy Bettoni and Anna Detheridge
Putting design in the center of C.L.A.S.S. (Creativity Lifestyle and Sustainable Synergy) – it offers a three-dimensional approach – creativity, innovation, and responsibility; they have recently launched the fourth dimension – communication.
«When you start talking about the value behind the company, for example, the heritage and people who are working for you, about the water reduction and asking third parties to measure it – you can share with the customer that you have diminished the environmental impact. Storytelling and story-making have to go together. You have good companies and products, but they are not selling well because they cannot tell the story with the right values. Communication should be a bit quicker; when you talk to people, the only communication they know is the green words».
Consumer literacy on sustainable matters should be tackled so that transparency and traceability are not the main issues; as Bettoni says, it is the consumer who teaches organizations how to reduce CO2, water waste, or chemicals.
«The competition is an opportunity to rethink how to communicate the new and different values of an ethical and sustainable fashion system»,explained Connecting Cultures Founder and President Anna Detheridge.
«I look forward to seeing all the proposals. It is a pleasure to discover creative talents that give sustainable fashion a fresh image. This year we have increased our focus on young talent from around the world. We are particularly interested in receiving projects from this next generation of creative talent, and we intend to involve international schools and academies even more. How will they translate these values into innovative concepts and images that truly communicate what is at the heart of sustainable fashion?».
Art and Interdisciplinary Research for a Sustainable Future
Founded in 2001 by Anna Detheridge, a scholar of the visual arts, a professor and curator, Connecting Cultures utilizes an interdisciplinary approach based in the arts to promote awareness, empower our community, and act as a catalyst for change and a sustainable future.
Since 2014, Connecting Cultures has had an active presence in the field of art and sustainable fashion through Out of Fashion, the first course in Italy to examine the issues of sustainable, ethical, and aware fashion. Realized in collaboration with POLI.Design, the course is focused on generating and sharing interdisciplinary knowledge among young industry professionals and a multi-faceted team of international experts in the fields of fashion, art, ethics, manufacturing, communications, and economics.
Out of Fashion promotes a culture of ethical and sustainable fashion, with respect not only to the environment but also to the people who work within the global fashion system, advancing responsible business models and consumption. In addition to its iconic course which brings together experts in all aspects of the fashion industry to teach the next generation’s leaders, the Out of Fashion platform publishes articles and books, organizes exhibitions and seminars, consults with corporations, and engages a community of active citizens on issues of sustainability.
Premiere Collection of Fibers&Yarns
C.L.A.S.S. has a Premiere Collection of Fibers&Yarns that presents materials that come with certifications, for instance, GOTS, G.R.S., OEKO-TEX. In its Smart Tools area, C.L.A.S.S. offers a selection of design driven and responsible fibers, yarns, fabrics, accessories, circular solutions, processes and future devices.
«It is not about perfection but measuring better. If you are listening to the contemporary consumer’s needs, you also need to measure them differently. Sometimes the consumer is more advanced in sustainability than the market. To define sustainability, you have to know how the company is behaving: the strategy, ethics, and social. The second is – how do you do the product? In the middle, you have a new generation of values that are coming from consumers».
While the garment’s journey begins with fiber, states Bettoni, for C.L.A.S.S.’s, the journey starts with the mindset – design strategy – how long does the yarn, fabric, or garment need to last? According to the article on Traceability of Ready-to-Wear Clothing through Blockchain Technology, high volatility, a short life cycle, low predictability, and high impulse purchase are the characteristics of the fashion sector.
Winners of past editions
The winning projects of past editions were Take a Walk on the Green Side by Emma Scalcon (2021 – Italy) and Fashion Affair by Vishal Tolambia (2022 – India), two different works that highlighted how challenging sustainability issues are in the contemporary communication landscape.
The first international competition for communication models in sustainable fashion
The ‘Imagining Sustainable Fashion’ award is a competition of ideas and creativity and a way of assessing this issue by serving as a wake-up call for companies that have made investments and have innovated their practices to adhere to a sustainable ethos and reach their responsible goals but have failed to communicate their commitment.
This lack of communication is what prompted C.L.A.S.S. and Connecting Cultures to launch the award, the first international competition for communication models in sustainable fashion. C.L.A.S.S. and Connecting Cultures have tasked them with finding ways to develop icons and narratives contrasting the overconsumption and exclusivity model while promoting local excellences and establishing an emotional resonance with target markets, reinforcing a brand’s identity and encouraging reflection.
Identifying original ways of engineering
Educating the next generation of sustainable fashion professionals and aiding them as they move their first steps in the industry is a goal that Connecting Cultures share with C.L.A.S.S.
Together they joined forces to call on the international creative community to identify original ways of engineering, a kind of communication that combines innovation and sustainable values.
Stylists, photographers, designers, illustrators, artists, and other creatives who participated in this competition and took on the challenge of expressing the many sides of the sustainable fashion industry, were asked to focus on the responsible use of materials and textiles and on impactful design and the aesthetic quality of the images.
Sustainability as a fashion strategy
Since consumers have started prioritizing sustainability, the latter has become part of the fashion industry’s communication strategy, even for companies that haven’t implemented sustainable policies.
There are no official definitions for terms such as ‘biodegradable’, ‘green’, or ‘natural’, and companies can use these words to mislead their customers, who are struggling to differentiate between false claims and true commitment.
In this climate, using effective communication becomes fundamental for the fashion companies that put sustainable values into practice, because if they don’t communicate with them, consumers won’t recognize their efforts.
