Winners of the MODA-FAD Awards

Yet another year the FAD’s Fostering Fashion Association recognizes fashion professionals and brands for their contribution to the industry during the past year in the second edition of the MODA-FAD Awards. On 15 June the Disseny Hub Barcelona will host the staging and prize-giving ceremony of these awards.

The jury, which comprises Ana Murillas, Charo Mora, specialist in fashion culture and trends, Claudia Pérez, co-founder and designer of the footwear firm Naguisa, Estel Vilaseca, editor of Moda, and the fashion designer Krizia Robustella, have chosen a winner in each one of the categories.

Award to Carlota Barrera for Merit in Garment Design

Carlota Barrera is a young London-based designer. She graduated from the master’s of the London College of Fashion and developed her skills by working in several haute couture houses. In July 2018 she presented a menswear collection entitled “The Matador and the Fisherman” for Spring/Summer ’19, coinciding with the establishment of her homonymous label.

The label’s main purpose is to explore modern silhouettes and create collections that reflect classic tailoring and artisan techniques through a new design and a visual approach. The apparel mixes the concepts of heritage and luxury, endowing it with the contemporary aesthetic of the modern man.

Award to Pardo Hats for Merit in Complements Design

Pardo Hats, the lab project of the designer Sol Pardo, fights to showcase ideals through millinery. Hats as usable objects that combine art, design and craft.

There is a conscious decision to utilize reusable handmade materials to find hats combining acrylic as the distinctive raw material with toquilla straw hats made by hand by a community of weavers. Pardo Hats defends the value of that which is permanent, of a slow fashion that creates concepts, that generates an identity and keeps the false charm of the instantaneous at a distance. A timeless object is thus created that embodies the promise of letting ourselves find each other beyond time.

Award to Rebeca Sueiro for Merit in Styling and Image

In 2002 Rebeca Sueiro started her relationship with the world of Stage Wardrobe, studying Industrial Pattern Making and winning her first jobs in the industry in A Coruña. Attracted from a very young age to the more underground artistic, aesthetic and music subcultures and scene, she devoted almost a decade to travelling around different countries in Europe, Africa and Asia. She resumed her studies in Barcelona in 2011, the city where she has lived ever since.

Her obsession with seeing how each person constructs a unique language through which to communicate with their garments led her to divert to the field of wardrobe design, starting to experiment in her first fashion editorials. Through her colourful imagery that is rebellious and always filled with references to music she built her creative identity, identifiable in all her personal projects, dealing with topics ranging from post-adolescent freshness and nostalgia to more transcendental themes such as diversity or feminism.

Award to Ignasi Monreal for Merit in Visual Communication

Ignasi Monreal is a Barcelona-born, Rome-based multidisciplinary artist. He works in various mediums, including painting, design, creative direction and film. He is the creator of the celebrated Gucci Spring/Summer ’18 campaign, the first of this kind in being entirely digitally painted, the reason why MODA-FAD has decided to recognize it in the category of Visual Communication within the world of fashion.

Monreal is also known for his murals, which have been installed in New York, Chicago, London, Paris, Milan, Shanghai and Hong Kong. He has produced works within the world of music, directing a video clip for the artist Rosalía and collaborating with FKA twigs and Christine & the Queens. His first solo exhibition opened in February 2019 at Madrid’s Fresh Gallery.

Honour Award for Pedro Rovira

The MODA-FAD Board recognizes the work of Pedro Rovira in the world of fashion by awarding him the Honour Prize for his creative work and for having enhanced the value of identity in local and national fashion.

In 1948 Rovira founded his first fashion house on Plaza Gal·la Placídia, which years later moved to the Rambla del Prat in Barcelona. In 1957 he presented his collection at the Berlin International Exposition; in 1964 he joined the Haute Couture Cooperative and the following year he presented his collection at the Spanish Pavilion of the New York International Fair. Rovira was a touchstone in Barcelona fashion during the 1960s and ‘70s. He showed predilection for pure lines, particularly in daywear pieces. His creations stand out for their sharp lines and plays of colour, good construction and impeccable tailoring.

His work is characterized by simple shapes, straight in day dresses and globe-shaped in cocktail dresses or evening wear. He plays with combinations of colours and prints. His cocktail dresses feature a tight bodice and voluminous skirt and are often fastened with same-fabric bows that are both functional and ornamental. His first trousers appeared in the late 1960s for the sports line and in the 1970s in evening sets.

Students Award for Sustainability

This award recognizes the best master’s degree dissertation showing a commitment to sustainability. This year Mireia Panisello, a Fashion Design student at BAU, won the MODA-FAD Award for Students for Sustainability. We should highlight that the Special Jury Mention in this category went to Maitena Vega, a Fashion Design student at LCI Barcelona.

The jury for this specific student category comprised: Maria Perez-Hickman, chair of the Sustainable Fashion Barcelona Association; Mireia G Lara, textile and fashion designer; and Montse Bayén, the driving force behind By My Eco.

Various pieces and outfits by the winners of the MODA-FAD Awards are on display from 18 May to 1 September at “The Best Design of the Year” exhibition organized by the FAD at the Disseny Hub Barcelona.