Beautiful Youth

We have all experienced the drama of this year. 2020 will be the year that people will look back on in utter shock. Such a mass of confusion from the world-wide health crises of Covid-19 to natural calamities like the Australia bushfire, floods in Indonesia, more Bush Fires in America. Maybe we can see this as a wake-up call for all of us? Is this the universe telling us to take care of our beautiful planet? Our youth has already started taking the initiative to save our beautiful nature with their amazing talent. Find out more about positive change in Beautiful Youth.

For over 35 years the Hyères Festival has been promoting and supporting young international fashion talent then in 1997 the competition added young photographers into the competition. This year, for the fourth year running, the competition also bought in new designers of fashion accessories.

Mercedes-Benz at the 35th Hyères Festival presents a digital mentorship programme with Fashion Open Studio on eco-sustainability

This event was supported by 140 designers over 30 platforms around the world, including Milan, London, New York, Beijing, Prague, Istanbul and Berlin. This event is recognised as the oldest competition in the world for young professionals.

During this years competition there were 10 finalists with Several prize rewards allocated.

As this is a competition about helping young talent participants are provided with help from the day of their selection. This mentorship covers over a period of two years with many areas supported including financing, production, crafts, materials, publishing, legal, press, exhibition, workshop, and residency.

On the occasion of the 35th Hyères Festival joint forces of Mercedes-Benz who partnered with Fashion Open Studio (FOS) A non-profitable organisation that provides an online platform for designers around the world to share information, find solutions, and communication with their customers, in order to bring change.

The duo of Mercedes-Benz and FOS launched a digital eco-sustainability mentorship programme for all the finalists called ‘Mercedes-Benz Fashion Talents. Orsola de Castro, Creative Director of FOS, helped to communicate the importance of design talents, highlighting key sustainability practices such as how to utilise pre-existing resources in order to cut down on virgin production.

As part of the educational programme, finalists were asked to select one look from their final collection that best integrates the eco-knowledge gained.

Mercedes-Benz is driving their support to young fashion designers, who care about the environment, in order to grow a journey for us all towards a more sustainable world. As the fashion industry is the 3rd largest industry promoting sustainable fashion can lead to a huge impact on our world.

Mercedes Benz is known throughout the fashion world as a major sponsor for international fashion weeks hence their care and commitment towards the industry.

To drive sustainable luxury forward this duo has also developed an Eco-sustainability road-map to inspire the global Mercedes-Benz markets. The ambition is to transform Mercedes-Benz’ fashion weeks to create a platform where consumers, young designers and mainstream brands exchange innovation, techniques, and supply chain information. that will aid the planet

Mercedes-Benz at the 35th International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Fashion Accessories in Hyères

The images captured this year were from the winner from 2017 Daragh Soden, where he was awarded the Grand Prix du Jury for Photography. Part of his prize was to take all the dynamic images for this year’s competition.

And as for all the winners?

Emma Bruschi won as a designer who best incorporated responsible practices in her work. As well as winning she will be included in an upcoming Mercedes-Benz Fashion activity in 2021.

Tom Van Der Borght won the prestigious fashion prize for young design talent was awarded as the Grand Prix du Jury for Photography, he was chosen from a shortlist of ten exceptional finalists. Additionally, he was invited by Mercedes-Benz to present his images at a standalone fashion show during the Mercedes-Benz Berlin Fashion Week Autumn/Winter 2021 from January 18 – 20, 2021.