On 25 February, the European Institute of Design IED Barcelona and noted Spanish photographer Manuel Outumuro joined together to announce the winners of the Best Shooting Award from Fashioners of the World 2020.
The annual fashion talent contest was held among IED Barcelona Design School graduates; students from the Undergraduate Degree in Fashion Design and the BA (Hons) in Fashion Design presented their photographic works to be assessed by Outumuro.
The present creative period has an unprecedented historical value, a fact reflected in this competition. For this award, young creatives produced their works during lockdown in an at-home environment. Nevertheless, the challenge of these extraordinary circumstances served as a motivator, producing some truly outstanding results.
Outumuro was amazed by the level of quality of the submitted works, as he said in his conversation with Pilar Pasamontes, fashion scientific director of IED Barcelona. “I don’t know if it’s because they have great teachers and the centre is perfect, but the level of all the work surprised me,” he remarked. “It’s not easy to take a fashion photo; it’s easy to take a selfie.”
Creators used their frustration with the present crisis as an instrument, building their visual language and showing how the pandemic has affected fashion. What should be again noted is that students carried their photoshoots with extremely limited resources, forced to rely upon the supplies and materials they could access at home.
Despite this, numerous stunning works were shown. Among the most remarkable was the work of the first place winner, Laura Pérez, and her shooting of the Atila collection. With her monochromatic colour palette and sharp composition, she vividly captured the power of the cloth. As Outumuro commented on Pérez’s portfolio, “The white border she’s used emphasises and provides a graphic counterpoint to this collection, which I also loved in all the clothing and accessories,” exclaiming that it had a strong graphic character.
The second place award was given to Margarita Dalit and her work on Hekla. Looking at Dalit’s shoot, it is impossible not to feel the ambience of loneliness, nostalgia and loss that has touched nearly everyone during the current situation. It is impressive how Dalit harnessed all these emotions and worries, turning them into a work of art. In his comments, Outumuro underlined a “certain nostalgia and post-industrial aspect” of the work.
Finally, the third prize was awarded to Sofía Adell and her photo shoot for Ser. Among the aforementioned works, Adell’s stand out with warm colour composition and vibrant imagery. Her shoot has a definite aura of pacification and solitude, which, in meeting the fashion pieces, creates a unique harmony. Outumuro highlights her creation, declaring that it possessed an “atmosphere of intimacy, of warmth and comfort in the garment, which is very well reflected in the shooting”.
Each of the prized scholars managed to show not just an image, but put life into it, displaying their style, vision and place in the pandemic using their compositions. All of them were versatile, with no similar manner between them.
words. Nino Sichinava
Schön! Magazine is now available in print at Amazon,
as ebook download + on any mobile device
