Sustainable Fashion: Next Generation Student Challenge

As part of the partnership with the University of Leeds, the M&S Company Archive were keen to encourage student engagement in the launch of The Enterprise of Culture on 5 December 2013. The strong fashion and business themes and the involvement of the Archive lent themselves to an interdisciplinary fashion-based competition and was an opportunity to reflect the mutual priority of sustainability at M&S and the University of Leeds.

The Sustainable Fashion: Next Generation Student Challenge provided the opportunity to showcase the talent of Leeds students and for them to have their work displayed to a wide audience and judged by an expert panel from the Enterprise of Culture research team.

The Student Challenge offered a unique opportunity for students to exhibit their work to a large and varied audience during the launch, and into early 2014, at the Marks In Time exhibition in the M&S Company Archive. Submissions were judged and received feedback from a European panel of senior academics and industry experts. The winners were announced at the key note address from Professor Regina Blaszczyk on the evening of the project launch event at the University of Leeds.

Organised by M&S Partnership Intern, Tamsin Slade, the competition gave a fantastic opportunity for students to be involved in a live research project and gain insight into the fast paced fashion sector. Students were asked to respond to the fashion challenge by addressing how they would make sustainable fashion desirable in the future: whether this would be a new textile innovation, a dynamic marketing strategy or an inspired business plan. Students across faculties at the University of Leeds were invited to take part in teams of three, interpreting the brief according to their subject area or pooling expertise for cross-disciplinary programmes.

‘Simply Sustain’ by Gabriella Klimaszewski, Etton Yang and Iris Zhen was chosen in first place. The judges were impressed by the winning group’s slogan and how it resonated with the M&S brand and thought that the strategy of reusing fabric that would otherwise be discarded showed a clear and original commitment to sustainability.

‘Your M&S – Sustainable Fashion: Next Generation’ came a close second. The judges liked the innovative way of using modern technology and QR codes to educate about the manufacture and sourcing of materials.

Both groups were made up of students studying the MA Fashion Enterprise and Society masters programme.

Image: the winning team receive their award from Professor Regina Lee Blaszczyk and Tamsin Slade (M&S Company Archive).