Last weekend in scorching Trieste, Diesel President Renzo Rosso and a panel of judges including design duo Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren selected Michael Kampe for this year’s Diesel Fashion award at the International Talent Support competition. Previous finalists include Peter Pilotto, Aitor Throup, and Mark Fast. Kampke, taking a sculptural approach, created a patchwork jacket inspired by exploded view drawings and engineer’s blueprints. Diesel, a longstanding partner of ITS, sponsored the prize to reward exceptional young fashion designers, recent graduates who are about to enter the world of work.
The fashion collection of the year went to Takashi Nishiyama from Japan who created a collection inspired by the popular Japanese videogame Monster Hunter. "Our main criterion is originality. Takashi's work was something we've never seen before and it inspired us,” said Horsting and Snoeren. “Sometimes a collection can be fashionable but there's not enough originality. Designers also require the skills to pull it off as it doesn't work if the skills are not there."
In the accessories category, the winner was Sarah Williams who designed and created a hand-stitched luggage collection. The concerned message in her work was about the disappearance of craftsmanship in western culture, which she hopes to change. Zara Gorman's architectural hats created from materials such as Perspex, wood and brass were AnOther’s favourites.
Text by Nobuko Tannawa
