Students of IED Milano School of Fashion took to the streets at the Dazio di Levante di Porta Sempione (Arco della Pace) for the first time, presenting their graduate collections for Avant Défilé. It was a two-day event open to the public, during which over 800 people visited the exhibition, discovered and voted on the best IED graduate collections alongside students, professionals, lecturers, fashion experts, and journalists.
13 rooms inside the 19th-century structure featured the 13 creations of 17 graduates in Fashion Design and Shoes as well as Accessories Design from IED Milano, presented in different settings, forming a highly personal yet collective story, enriched by live moments in which the garments will come to life.
The public's contribution led to the selection of the three most-voted projects, winning the participation in national and international shows in which IED will participate in the coming months.
Cristian Bogliano won the Press Award with the sportswear collection Surrounded by Nobody. The designer from Novara presented a collection giving a new life at the sportswear deadstock. The basic idea of the collection envisions a professional athlete who inhabits the airtight environment of competitive sports. Something that materialises as a form of undesired social isolation, neither imposed nor chosen, but in any case present, and strongly characterised by a multitude of physical and metaphorical elements. “In the collection I wanted to emphasize the hidden aspect of ‘secondary’ sportswear, which is not sold or spread about,” said the designer.
Susy Zhang e Jieru Yang won the Professionals and Companies Award, with collection Natural Rhapsody. The Chinese students set a collection on a dystopian future: “Let us imagine a world in 150 years, where the only elements that can be traced back to nature are pieces of clothing,” commented the designers. Proposing to lead a change towards sustainable and eco-friendly design, they use an eco-leather of their creation made with avocado seeds and pulp, and natural dyes for the fabrics (black tea, eucalyptus, honeysuckle). It also contains alum for a crystallised effect. The goal is to achieve a sustainable and biodegradable collection using 100% natural materials.
Francesco Saverio Matera and Alessio Baldasseroni won the Award of the Public, with their collection Materia. The project is characterized by the strong ability to adapt to the bodily needs of the individual and the spatiality that one experiences externally. The purpose is to shed light on the struggle for equal rights and gender equality, realised through the design of sustainable garments and a genderless aesthetic, as well as through strong technical and production innovations. “The intended value is in an existentialist, adaptive fashion, a product that stems from a rethink of the human dimension in its links with spatiality and physicality,” said the designers.
Photo: Alessio Baldasseroni and Francesco Saverio Materaa are the winners of the Award of the Public, with the Materia project
