Maddie Williams wins Redress Design Award

Womenswear designer Maddie Williams and Fashion Design graduate of the Edinburg College of Art has won first prize in the Redress Design Awards 2019 on Thursday. The finale show and award ceremony were organized during the Centrestage fashion trade fair currently taking place in Hong Kong. Redress was launched in 2011 and is a global sustainable fashion design competition, open to designers worldwide. Among the ten finalists were designers from Spain, Israel, Germany, Hong Kong and Australia. Winning first prize Williams will get the opportunity to create a sustainable collection in collaboration with the JNBY group, one of China's leading fashion companies.

For Williams' Redress Design Award collection, ‘The Mourners’, she drew on the loss of biodiversity, planetary health and humanity. The designer, that works as a junior designer at Pentland Brands, applied up-cycling and reconstruction techniques to reclaimed textiles, yarns and secondhand clothing. Williams wove them into zero-waste pieces and garments. She also applied Memento mori symbolism (the medieval Latin Christian theory and practice of reflection on mortality) in the textile and prints as a reminder that time is running out and as a call to take action.

“I want to be able to use my skills and craft to raise awareness of the climate disaster we are facing and show that conscious clothing does not have to play it safe and be minimal - it can also excite and tell stories”, says Williams in the Redress press website.

Image: Redress Design Award