“Designer for Tomorrow” at Berlin Fashion Week

Being in a panel judging the winners of a competition for young designers can't be easy. With so many colleges, academies and universities offering courses in fashion design, these competitions can be fierce nowadays and choosing the best one among so many candidates can be really difficult. This is why I find these competitions really interesting: studying all the different entries, getting to know new designers and finally seeing the best ones emerge can also be very exciting, even when you're just sitting and watching and not actively taking part in the decisions of the panel.

During Mercedes-Benz Berlin Fashion Week, Peek & Cloppenburg promoted the "Designer for Tomorrow" Award, organised to celebrate a new generation of German designers.

Apparently there was a huge number of entries submitted, but only eight candidates were selected by the jury comprising photographers, journalists, fashion consultants, top models and industry experts. The eight finalists – Bianca Bannach, Cem Cako, Dawid Quture, Frida Weyer, Michael Sontag, Julia Knüpfer, Josefine Jarzombek and Joel Horwitz – presented their collections a couple of days ago.

There were both men and womenswear collections, functional and casual ready-to-wear creations and elegant evening wear, but the last four designers I mentioned were my favourites. Julia Knüpfer’s collection was characterised by voluminous shapes and silhouettes: her knitted pieces evoked Sandra Backlund’s knitwear, while her coats with short bell-shaped sleeves made of strips of painstakingly interwoven woollen material had a sculptural quality about them.

Joel Horwitz went for a very contemporary approach to menswear with bold zebra prints on jackets and trousers, electric blue suits paired with bright yellow shirts and colourful pixellated images of landscapes printed on jackets and leggings-like trousers.

With her "Breaking the Ice" collection Josefine Jarzombek explored the possibilities offered by minimalist menswear à la Jil Sander, adding an eccentric touch to it through a sort of study in layered materials, one coat for example had a multiple collar that made it look elegantly surreal.

I found the designs by Michael Sontag – also selected to take part in the Beck’s Fashion Experience runway show – rather interesting for their cut and for the fluid lines of his dresses.

I was happy to hear that two of my favourite designers, Knüpfer and Horwitz, were picked as the absolute winners of this competition. It will be exciting to see how their designs develop in future, especially after the sponsorship programme they will be offered by Peek & Cloppenburg.