About
Redress Design Award

About Redress Design Award

The Redress Design Award is the world’s leading sustainable fashion design competition, educating emerging fashion designers around the world about sustainable design theories and techniques in order to drive growth towards a circular fashion system. By putting sustainable design talent in the global spotlight, the Redress Design Award creates a unique platform for passionate and talented fashion game-changers to transform the global fashion industry and rewards the best with career-changing prizes to maximise long-term impact.


The programme is organised by Redress, a Hong Kong-based, Asia-focused environmental NGO, with support from Lead Sponsor, the Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency (CCIDA).

The Designers Challenge

Each competition cycle takes participants on an educational journey lasting several theory- and design-packed months. We work to educate designers about fashion’s negative environmental impacts, whilst inspiring them to use the core sustainable design techniques of zero-waste, upcycling, and reconstruction to cut waste out of fashion.

Through our university talks, sustainable fashion workshops, the online Redress Academy, Redress Circular Fashion Design Course, and in partnership with more than 170 universities around the world, we provide young designers with the theory and techniques to help them understand the new circular economy and capitalise on its global potential for the fashion industry. 

We then challenge participants to flex their creative genius and prove that they have the ingenuity and conviction to transform textile waste into stunning, scalable and commercially viable collections that will inspire and redress the world. 

Award timeline

The RDA
journey

2011

Inaugural cycle in launches in Hong Kong

2012

Second cycle in Hong Kong

2013

Inaugural international competition cycle open to Hong Kong, Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, UK, France, Belgium and Germany. Launch of the online open access LEARN Platform.

2014/15

Competition expands to include Hong Kong, Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, UK, France, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden

2015/16

Fifth anniversary cycle expands to all countries in Asia and Europe, and our Frontline Fashion doco-series launches, following the competitors’ journeys. 

2017

Cycle opens to designers in Asia, Europe, and for the first time, the USA

2018

Competition opens to be truly global and rebrands from the EcoChic Design Award to the Redress Design Award  

2019

Competition open to global applications, accepting menswear collections alongside womenswear. The judging criteria are strengthened to include design for circularity alongside the transformation of clothing and textile waste.

2020

10th anniversary cycle open to global applications with two separate prize categories for the first time, and the introduction of our first online Pathway Course 

2021

First digital-hybrid Grand Final Fashion Show and digital exhibition

2022

Rising Talents programme launches; exhibition features AR filters, allowing the public to ‘try on’ finalist designs

2023

Competition back in full swing with all Finalists in Hong Kong; officially signed a MOU with the Shenzhen Garment Industry Association (SGIA), organisers of Shenzhen Fashion Week, to promote sustainability in fashion in the Greater Bay Area

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