SAFW Scouting Menswear 2021 Competition now open

Since its initiation in 2012, the Scouting Menswear Competition set out to select the best of the best within a large pool of young menswear design talent. It has raised the profile of emerging menswear designers, introduced them to media and buyers, as well as supported them in breaking through into the retail market.

10 Jun 2021

Source: pixabay.com

Today expectations from young designers are high – they are required to produce a comprehensive collection within a few months, be active on social media, have a strong industry and media presence and simultaneously cope with the business of fashion.

The Scouting Menswear Competition assists designers in coping with the demand to establish their brand soon after they have launched. If you are serious about “the business of fashion” SA Fashion Week will spotlight your talent and give you the marketing platform needed to get to the top of your game.

The Scouting Menswear Competition challenges designers to flex their creative talent and prove that they have the ingenuity and conviction to transform textile ‘waste’ into stunning, scalable, and commercially viable collections that will inspire and motivate the South African consumer.

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The competition creates a unique platform for young fashion game-changers to grow towards a circular fashion system.

You must source 100% textile ‘waste’ for use in your collection. Most important is to understand what the design brief is asking of you and how you can meet the judging criteria.

Do you have what it takes?

If your answer is yes, you have to rethink how clothes are made and worn through a lens of circularity. Design a sustainable menswear collection for the ‘now’ fashion lover who values alternative design inspired by dress in the street, with as much respect for technical innovation as for our people and our planet.

Your customer is confident and curious, with a modern, natural, and independent lifestyle curated from eclectic sources of art, culture, music, travel, food and design. Your designs must be innovative, original, tapping into inspiration and your culture, chic and completely wearable. Your fabric selection must be luxurious and soft on the skin, considering the local temperatures in South Africa.

The judges want to see:

pictures of the starting point of each of your seven garments, proving where it came from and how you are adhering to one or more of the four circular design strategies (below) to improve the garment’s lifecycle and enable circularity
Design for low waste
Design for low-impact materials and processes
Design for longevity
Design for recyclability
combining this with visual references of your ‘now’ street inspiration
reclaiming textile ‘waste’ in unexpected ways and unlocking the power of waste
reinventing fashion by using one or more of the ‘Design for Low Waste’ design techniques of zero-waste, upcycling and reconstruction
reflecting opportunities for reproducibility, scalability and marketability