Business

The Netherland’s Marga Weimans wins IAF International Designer Award

Last night during the 29^th IAF World Fashion Convention, the annual highlight of the 7^th IAF International Designer Award Fashion Show, was held at the CCCT Training base and innovation center in Kunshan-Shanghai, China. Marga Weimans from the Netherlands was declared the winner of the IAF Designer Award 2013 for the most creative collection. She is offered a visit to the 30^th World Fashion Convention 2014 in Medellin, Colombia and will get the opportunity to show her collection during the fashion show there. Last year’s winner, Nelleke Strijkers, was present in Kunshan to show her new collection ‘Transformation begins with the individual.’

The designer duo Blaenk from Germany, consisting of the designers Nadine Möllenkamp and Silke Gei, took the second prize for best commercial collection. Carolina Sepulveda Acevedo from Colombia won third prize for the best way of working with the fabrics. This catwalk show offers designers from around the globe a platform which recognizes and rewards the next generation of designers by strengthening the exchange among IAF members associations, international fashion design is promoted among the most influential decision makers in the apparel industry.

A total of 8 countries participated in this event including China, Colombia, Taiwan, Brazil, the Netherlands, Germany, India and Sri Lanka. An international jury was present to judge the collections. President of the jury, Mariette Hoitink, underlined that there was no discussion among the judges about the talent of the designers.

The judge panel consisted of:

1. Mariette Hoitink: Owner/Managing Director at HTNK Fashion Recruitment & Consultancy.

2. Zhao Ping: Dean/Professor of the school of Fashion Art and Engineering of Beijing Institute of Clothing Technology.

3. Leslie Holden: Head of faculty for the departments of Design and Management at the Amsterdam Fashion Institute.

4. Fu Yin: Chief Designer of TF-Sunny

Judgement criteria is focussed on innovation, originality, creativity, fabrics and quality of the collections. Their final judgement of the designs is on basis of creativity (40%) and marketability (60%).