Sustainable Fashion Challenge – Swarovski & Cirque

The École supérieure de mode de l’ESG UQAM, Cirque du Soleil and Swarovski have announced the winners of the debut Cirque du Soleil and Swarovski sustainable fashion challenge.

Pursuing the same goal of acting responsibly as a business, Cirque du Soleil and Swarovski gave Fashion Business students at École supérieure de mode (ESM), part of l’École des sciences de la gestion de l’Université du Québec à Montréal (ESG UQAM), the opportunity to reimagine Swarovski crystal-embellished costumes that have previously appeared in some world famous shows from Cirque du Soleil. The two companies worked together with the fashion school to connect young talent with these incredible materials and to engage their skills in a sustainable fashion challenge.

Nadja Swarovski, Member of the Swarovski Executive Board, commented: “It was a pleasure to collaborate with Cirque du Soleil to support these young fashion talents and to find new ways to explore sustainability issues within their educational and creative development.”

Working in teams, students at ESM, were commissioned to transform fantastic Cirque du Soleil costumes into new designs using crystals and fabric, inspired by both brands’ ongoing commitment to supporting emerging talent and engaging with key sustainability issues. In addition, Cirque du Soleil and Swarovski also actively assisted the students with sustainability and product lectures.

Marie-Ève Faust, Professor at l’École supérieure de mode (ESM) de l’ESG UQAM mentioned: “It’s an honor for us to collaborate with internationally renowned businesses such as Cirque du Soleil & Swarovski. Not only students are learning beyond usual product development academic themes but they were able to reason and conceptualize products according to XXI century features.”

The judging panel, which included ambassadors from Cirque du Soleil, Swarovski and ESM, were highly impressed by the effort and innovation demonstrated by the students. Two teams were equally recognized as winners.

Winners of KALÉI team transformed Swarovski crystal-embellished costumes from Cirque du Soleil to create, a kaleidoscope with crystals inside it, evoking memories of early childhood as well as a cloth bag made of costume scraps for carrying the kaleidoscope. The team members said: “We are really proud of KAÉLI; the project meant everything to us. It was a team project from beginning to end, and we put a lot of time and energy into it.”

Winners of BAR VIP team created a coaster with, on one side, crystals and, on the other, recipes for a variety of cocktails that could be matched with the characters from Cirque du Soleil shows. The team members said: “It was great to be able to benefit from the Cirque du Soleil–Swarovski partnership in our product development course. It was a fantastic opportunity for us and all the other teams. We are thrilled to have won, and we think our project has real development potential.”

Benoit Mathieu, Vice-president of Costumes and Creative Spaces at Cirque du Soleil said:

‘‘We were exited to collaborate with Swarovski in order to support young local fashion talents in a unique and creative way. This initiative enables us to combine creativity and development sustainability, two values which are dear to our core values. We were impressed to see the talent discovered with this project.’’

{ SOURCE: YoutTube, CSRWire | http://goo.gl/j3bgf6 }