Global Denim Awards kicks off 3rd Edition with 11 participants

The Global Denim Awards is set to return to the city of Amsterdam for the third consecutive year. The 2016 edition will see 11 up and coming designers paired with 11 top denim mills from across the globe to develop a innovative capsule denim collection.

The 11 participating designers are as followed: Marina van Dieren and Christina Albrecht, from The Netherlands/Germany; Marius Op'T Eynde, a London-based designer from Belgium; Gianluca Ferracin and Andrea Masato, from Italy; Emre Aktuna and Deniz Gur, from Turkey; Lavinia Mustapha, from Italy/Lebanon; Leandro Cano, from Spain; and Anbasja Blanken, Tess van Zalinge, Lisa Konno and Karin Vlug, and Roosmarijn Koster from the The Netherlands.

Participating denim mills include Atlantic Mills from Thailand, Calik Denim from Turkey, and last year's winner of the 'Best Fabric Award', Berto Industria Tessile, from Italy. "We felt so proud," said Berto on winning last year. "In a period when the textile business is going through hard times, the award has been a great incentive for us. We reorganised our production process, especially in the prototypes phase, and have enhanced our innovations lab."

The resulting denim collections for the 3rd edition of the Global Denim Awards will be judged by a jury of international denim expert - which includes Amy Leverton, former Saville Row designer Sam Lambert and Kelly Harrington - and a winner will be crowned following a catwalk show on October 26.

The designer of the winning collection is set to receive 10,000 euros cash prize, with an additional award going to winning mill for the most innovative fabric. Afterwards the winning collection will go on display at Kingpins Shows in New York City and Hong Kong, before returning to the Netherlands for Amsterdam Denim Days 2017.

Photo Credit: Simon Trel Photography