Textiles Boost

We first reported on the Swiss Textiles Award back in 2003 when, after two years in existence, the event was rebranded to embrace cutting-edge international designers.
We travelled to Zürich to attend this year’s ceremony, where Marios Schwab — much reported on in these pages during the last two years — took home the winning prize.

With a generous 100k euro endorsement, the career-lifting event is one of fashion’s most important launchpads for brands on
the cusp of a breakthrough. Raf Simons, Haider Ackerman, Christian Wijnants, and Bruno Pieters have all garnered greater brand recognition since winning the prize — Simons, for example, has found critical and commercial
success as creative director at Jil Sander, while Pieters designs HUGO by Hugo Boss and, thanks to his 2006 win, showed off his own s/s ‘08 line at the ceremony.

In addition to Pieters’ showing, this year’s finalists — Gareth Pugh, Bless, Ann-Sofie Back, Ute Ploier, Felipe Oliveira Baptista, and Marios Schwab — showed back-to-back catwalk presentations of their nominated s/s ‘08 collections. It’s a testament to
the Swiss organization that attendees were treated to such a seamless presentation: the meticulously planned and well-attended
event compiled some of the most directional clothes, without getting tangled in London or Paris traffic jams to present them.
If only Fashion Weeks could organize like this.

Though there wasn’t a bad apple in the bunch of finalists, the jury — comprised of fashion consultant Robert Burke, Akiko Ichikawa of Japanese Vogue, Dolly Jones of Vogue.com, Pashion magazine’s editor-in-chief, Susan Sabet, and Maria Luisa-buyer Robin Schulie — was unanimous in the decision to give Schwab the prestigious prize. The winning collection, Vigour-Mortis,
deals with "the inner body-conscious," according to Schwab, who further explains that this heady concept came out of "studying
and researching Andrea Versalius, the great 16th-century anatomy artist. His anatomical portraits look like atlases. And I took that concept to inspire the
topography of my dresses. They read like atlases on the body." To achieve this, Schwab looked to forward-thinking fabrics
that had "the internal space of the garment reacting on the outside," resulting in "colors of fabrics that change upon touch
and heat-activated prints. The idea was to turn around body-conscious and make things conscious on the body." Despite the
heavy rooting of his thesis, Schwab’s procession of minidresses and fitted jackets was as hip as it comes.

"It’s one of the biggest events to date in my career," Schwab told us. "The recognition and access to quality Swiss textiles
— this will change my business." And it appears business will develop just fine for this on-the-rise talent.
-Jason Campbell

Photos:
Marios Schwab at the Swiss Textiles Award
Marios Schwab s/s ‘08
Bruno Pieters s/s ‘08
Raf Simons s/s ‘04
Gareth Pugh s/s ‘08