[5 September 2025, Hong Kong] – Redress, the Hong Kong-based, Asia-focused environmental NGO accelerating circular fashion, made an unprecedented announcement of two joint First Prize winners of the Redress Design Award 2025, the world’s leading sustainable fashion design competition, at a star-studded runway finale in Hong Kong—where Asia’s fashion and business elite gathered to witness innovation born from urgency. With global textile waste increasing and circularity seemingly decreasing, the two distinctly outstanding winners bring different and much needed circular solutions.
As Lead Sponsor, the Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency (CCIDA) has been a cornerstone of the project. “We are pleased to be the lead sponsor of the Redress Design Award,” said Mrs. Lowell Cho, Acting Commissioner for Cultural and Creative Industries. “The award has been a catalyst for change, bringing together designers, industries, and academia. Works of the 2025 cohort and the winners showcase the potential of circular fashion, and we look forward to seeing the profound impact to be brought to the industry.”
On the 15th Anniversary Redress Design Award runway, 10 finalists’ collections—crafted from waste streams ranging from defective stock to old tents—stole the show at CENTRESTAGE – Asia’s Fashion Spotlight at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, amplifying Asia’s significance as a hub for circular fashion innovation.
Prizes to drive change
Supported by DHL, the First Prize winners will receive mentorship, an exclusive opportunity to showcase their competition collections at the Shanghai GREENEXT Expo 2025, and a limited edition retail collaboration with renowned creative Flora Cheong-Leen, with support from the Tian Art Foundation.
Of the judging process, Orsola de Castro, Author and Co-founder, Fashion Revolution, said, “We chose two joint First Prize winners because their collections are distinctly different yet equally outstanding, both with innovative solutions to recuperate and elevate waste. Mentoring both will let us scale their impact, from Europe to China, at a time when sustainability focus is declining.”
Flora Cheong-Leen, Founder, Tian Art Fashion Design House, added, “The world needs hope. The upcoming limited-edition retail collaboration for China will engage influential audiences and reinvigorate urgency around circular design.”
Joint winner of the Redress Design Award 2025 First Prize supported by DHL, Hugo Dumas from France, whose upcycled and zero-waste collection is regenerative and recyclability-focused, said, “Winning is not just about my designs, it’s about proving that creativity can outpace crises.”
Joint winner, Carla Zhang from Mainland China, whose handwoven zero-waste collection is made with complex factory surplus cords and yarns, shared, “Winning this competition will allow us to promote resourceful solutions to more of the industry and consumers, as a way to find value in overlooked materials. It’s challenging, and I’m ready to rise to the challenge.”
The Redress Design Award 2025 winners also include Mara San Pedro from the Philippines, who won the People’s Choice, and Nathan Moy, who won Hong Kong Best.
Mr. Andy Chiang, Senior Vice President & Managing Director, DHL Express Hong Kong and Macau, said, “This year, we’re proud to stand with Redress in addressing fashion’s critical waste crisis—a challenge that demands urgent, collective action. Supporting the Redress Design Award and its community of innovators aligns with our commitment to driving sustainability across industries. These designers prove that creativity can transform waste into opportunity, and that circular fashion isn’t just a vision, but a viable path forward. It’s an honour to support their efforts, helping amplify initiatives that champion sustainability and demonstrate how fashion can transform its narrative for the better. At DHL, we believe in the power of partnership to scale impact—and this collaboration stands as a testament to that belief.”
Urgent call for more action
“For 15 competition cycles, we’ve invested in designers because they hold the pen to rewrite fashion’s story. Fashion’s current linear and wasteful system is unacceptable. Designers aren’t being adequately empowered, from university classrooms to industry boardrooms, whilst consumers are, ethically speaking, asleep in their wardrobes. Around the world, the catastrophic corresponding carbon and water pollution, and textile waste that’s washing up on beaches and overflowing in landfills, is telling the planet something. The question is, are we listening?” said Dr. Christina Dean, Founder and Chair, Redress.
The statistics are stark. The global textile industry is a mere 0.3% circular, consuming 3.25 billion tonnes of materials annually—over 99% from virgin sources.¹ Textile waste continues to mount, with the equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles landfilled or burned every second around the world.² Textile waste is estimated to increase by about 60% between 2015 and 2030.³
15 cycles of action – progress made, but the challenge demands more
Alongside the Redress Design Award 2025 show, Redress also presented six Redress Alumni brands: ANNAISS YUCRA by Isabel Annaiss Yucra, The LOOM ART by Aarushi Kilawat, WEN PAN by Wen Pan, PCES by Jessica Chang, the CHAOS by Jasmine Leung, and Absurd Laboratory by Eric Wong.
The six are part of the Redress Alumni Network, which has over 330 alumni (with 185+ in Asia), many of whom continue to pioneer circular fashion across the globe today and demonstrate the competition’s legacy. These are the leaders redefining industry norms, growing their sustainable brands, and embedding circularity into major labels and educational spaces.
Beyond nurturing this network of innovators, the Redress Design Award’s 15-year focus on circular fashion education addresses a critical truth: 80% of a product’s environmental impact is locked in at the design stage.4 Through online resources, workshops, and industry partnerships, Redress is bridging this educational gap through talks and online resources, having achieved:
- 18 million views of educational materials for fashion designers
- 23,000+ designers directly educated through offline and online programmes
- Over 4,500 applications from 92 regions since the competition’s inception
For 15 years, Redress has believed in fashion’s collaborative power to drive positive change, having also worked with a wide range of stakeholders like Esprit, Tommy Hilfiger, Shanghai Tang, Timberland, JNBY, DHL, and TAL Apparel over the years.
Redress founder, Dr. Christina Dean concludes, “The crisis is urgent, and so is the potential. It’s time for everyone—designers, educators, brands, consumers—to rise to the challenge. The future depends on it.”
－Ends －
Footnotes
- Circle Economy (2024), Circularity Gap Report 2024, Textiles
- Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2017), A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning Fashion’s Future
- Global Fashion Agenda and The Boston Consulting Group (2017), Pulse of the Fashion Industry
- EU Science Hub (2018), Sustainable Product Policy
High-resolution images are available here.
Media Enquiries
Shirley A. Wong – Communications Lead (email)
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- The applicants: The Redress Design Award 2025 was open globally to applications from emerging designers and students with less than four years’ professional experience. Finalists here.
- The judges: The Redress Design Award 2025 judges represent the crème de la crème of global sustainable fashion industry expertise. Judges include Simon Au, Orsola de Castro, Bonnie Chen, Flora Cheong-Leen, Kévin Germanier, Rod Henderson, Angus Tsui, and Dr. Hong Zheng. Learn more here.
- Redress Alumni: The Redress Design Award 2025 Finalists join the Redress Alumni Network, which offers ongoing support to over 330 designers as they develop their careers in sustainable fashion.
- Prizes: In addition to the First Prize shared by the two joint winners:
- The People’s Choice Award winner was voted by the public, highlighting consumer demand for circular fashion. The winner, Mara San Pedro from the Philippines, receives a digital book from Bloomsbury.
- The Hong Kong Best Prize winner, Nathan Moy, receives a one-year local membership at Soho House Hong Kong and a one-month access to the Designerooms co-working space.
About Redress’ education for designers
- The online, open-access Redress Educational Resources platform is here.
- The online Redress Circular Fashion Design Courses are here.
- Further supporting statistics are here.
The Redress Design Award (www.redressdesignaward.com) is the world’s leading sustainable fashion design competition that educates and empowers emerging fashion designers about circular design techniques to reduce fashion’s negative environmental impacts. Organised by Hong Kong-based, Asia-focused environmental NGO Redress and sponsored by the Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency (formerly known as Create Hong Kong) annually since 2011, the competition now attracts designer applicants from over 50 countries and regions to win prizes that connect them with global-leading fashion businesses to accelerate the change to a circular fashion industry.
The Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency (CCIDA) (www.ccidahk.gov.hk) established in June 2024, formerly known as Create Hong Kong (CreateHK), is a dedicated office set up by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR Government) under the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau to provide one-stop services and support to the cultural and creative industries with a mission to foster a conducive environment in Hong Kong to facilitate the development of arts, culture and creative sectors as industries. Its strategic foci are nurturing talent and facilitating start-ups, exploring markets, promoting cross-sectoral and cross-genre collaboration, promoting the development of arts, culture and creative sectors as industries under the industry-oriented principle, and promoting Hong Kong as Asia’s creative capital and fostering a creative atmosphere in the community to implement Hong Kong’s positioning as the East-meets-West centre for international cultural exchange under the National 14th Five-Year Plan.
Redress (www.redress.com.hk) is a Hong Kong-based, Asia-focused environmental NGO with a mission to accelerate the change to a circular fashion industry by educating and empowering designers and consumers so as to reduce clothing’s negative environmental impacts.
DHL is the leading global brand in the logistics industry. Our DHL divisions offer an unrivalled portfolio of logistics services ranging from national and international parcel delivery, e-commerce shipping and fulfillment solutions, international express, road, air and ocean transport to industrial supply chain management. With approximately 400,000 employees in more than 220 countries and territories worldwide, DHL connects people and businesses securely and reliably, enabling global sustainable trade flows. With specialized solutions for growth markets and industries including technology, life sciences and healthcare, engineering, manufacturing & energy, auto-mobility and retail, DHL is decisively positioned as “The logistics company for the world”.
DHL is part of DHL Group. The Group generated revenues of approximately 84.2 billion euros in 2024. With sustainable business practices and a commitment to society and the environment, the Group makes a positive contribution to the world. DHL Group aims to achieve net-zero emissions logistics by 2050.
Disclaimer: The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region provides funding support to the project only, and does not otherwise take part in the project. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in these materials/events (or by members of the project team) are those of the project organisers only and do not reflect the views of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau, the Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency, the CreateSmart Initiative Secretariat or the CreateSmart Initiative Vetting Committee.
