We take a look back at EcoChic Design Award 2014/15 first prize winner, Kévin Germanier's, experience to design an up-cycled capsule collection for Shanghai Tang.
It’d been a busy year for Kévin Germanier, our The EcoChic Design Award 2014/15 winner. The media furore that followed him from Hong Kong’s runway back to his London home stayed with Kévin until his return to Hong Kong in September 2015 for his winning prize; to spend three intense months creating his up-cycled collection with Shanghai Tang. He hit the floor running, with his trademark charm and smiles in tow, to work shoulder to shoulder with China’s leading luxury brand’s team on each step of the process, from design, production, sourcing, marketing and merchandising, as he prepared his collection, and visions, for sale.
"Working in a professional environment really taught me how to pull a real collection together for retail, and not just the one-off pieces I’ve previously made as a student," Kevin told us. "My experience changed the way I look at design. It’s so important to understand the market and your customers; know what they want rather than designing what you want to!"
His up-cycled collection reflects Shanghai Tang’s "Modern China Chic" aesthetic and screams sophistication twice as loudly as they do sustainably. Along with the rich colours that are a signature of the brand another beauty of his silhouettes is that they are created entirely using Shanghai Tang’s surplus fabrics from their previous seasons.
Kévin’s success in putting waste back into fashion, literally, is a first for Shanghai Tang. It’s also a big step towards influencing the broader market, driven in part by The EcoChic Design Award, so that they industry stops, rethinks and redesigns their ‘waste’ back into clothes.
"Kévin is a very talented designer with strong sense of proportions, cut and creative. It was a real pleasure to have him in the studio and work with him on his capsule collection." shared Raffaele Borriello, Creative Consigliere, Shanghai Tang.
This article first appeared in the EcoChic Design Award 2016 magazine.