Fashion is always looking forward – the discipline is about dreams and renewal, but nowadays it seems to happen faster and more often than ever before. New collections, new trends, new it-pieces, and last but not least the constant hunt for new talents. Everyone from fashion houses to low price chains wants to join the party by finding the next talents through competitions, mentoring, internships and guest collections. They are often spotted when they still are in fashion school and some are even offered jobs by the time they are graduating. We are of course talking about upcoming designers. Don’t take us wrong, it is great that the fashion industry supports new talents, helping them to establish their work. However, we believe it to be equally important for the young and upcoming designers to be able to grow and find their own aesthetic, without worrying about opinions, money and selling numbers. Just focusing on designing and creating. But that is in many cases just a dream too good to be true, and the second best thing could therefore be for them to grow within a company interested in their visions.
H&M has for a long period of time been supporting new talents and they are for example celebrating them through their H&M Design Awards. The winner of this year’s edition is the Royal College of Art graduate Hannah Jinkins. Her graduate collection is inspired by work wear, masculine and ordinary working uniforms transformed through advanced tailoring. The whole collection was born from a reinvented denim jacket and the result is sculptural, form fitted, raw denim pieces. Jinkins is awarded with 50 000 euro and the possibility to, together with H&M, produce and sell parts of her collection in the brand’s stores next Fall. It sounds like a great start of what we believe will be a long career.
Hanna Cronsjö
