WHY DO WE HOLD A FASHION STARTUP EUROPE AWARDS?

Fashion and everything around it is in constant movement: from the prêt-à-porter to the low cost shops, there are new tendencies that exhaust the old ones and with them new challenges related to the life cycle, the selling and even human rights arise.

Fashion industry is more and more present and its approach affects not only the commerce but many other aspects from our daily life. Those enterprises that could face all these challenges in an innovative, effective and sustainable way will assure the success of fashion world in the near future.

The life cycle of clothes and fashion will be one of the key factors for the industry: to design a sustainable production that encourages the protection of the environment and the reincorporation of material to it in an effective way will be an essential requirement for the industry to keep growing. Initiatives like applications to exchange clothes or to give a “second life” to old clothes are on vogue among clients, therefore, if a second life for clothes could be implemented on a daily basis and at the same time link it to the fashion world could be getting close to solve one of its greatest issues.

Europe has always been a centre of trends and clothes, over time this industry has declined in favour of other countries. The innovation in the fashion world starts with the creation of a European system of fashion: applications that can allow a local production to have an international expansion, all of this from the sustainable consumption framework.

Maybe, that is why the fashion world should also concentrate its effort in create a modern design for the future: innovative, futurist and responsible. Besides, it has to struggle for a democratisation of the fashion, in other to provide everybody with the opportunity of being known along the world to show their designs and ideas.

AIM:

StartUp Europe Awards aims to recognise the fashion startups that try to create a new way of understanding fashion, from the production to the sale, without forgetting the design and trends.

CRITERIA:

The most important eligibility criteria are the following:

• Innovation/Technology
• Business Model
• Customer Value Proposition
• Scalability and Market Reach
• Social Clauses: job generated, gender policy, social inclusion, collaboration with NGOs, trainees program.
• European Dimension: participation in European funded projects, partnership or agreements with other European partners.