Amsterdam celebrates the first annual Global Denim Awards

“And the award for design goes to Jonathan Christopher,” said Adriano
Goldschmied, ‘the Godfather of denim,’ to a screaming crowd of denim
enthusiasts at Amsterdam’s brand new denim innovation campus, Denim
City during the first annual Global Denim Awards.

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“The Global Denim Awards 2014 is a new event, a pilot which pairs six
emerging designers, with no denim experience, with six of the world’s
premiere denim mills. It’s aim is to connect talents within the
industry to create a directional path for the future of denim design,
innovation, sustainability and craftsmanship,” explained Mariette
Hoitink, founder of fashion recruitment and consultancy agency HTNK,
who together with denim trade fair Kingpins, e3, and House of Denim,
HTNK created the debut award ceremony.

Dutch Designer Jonathan Christopher wins first Global Denim Awards

The selected nominees included Italian designer Stefano Ughetti,
Turkish designer Gizem Turn, London-designer Bhavesh Samji,
Amsterdam-based designer Fernanda Fernandes and Dutch designers
Jonathan Christopher and Anneloes van Osselaer. “The designers visited
the mills in Italy, Turkey, Spain and China and co-created with the
mill a capsule collection of five total denim looks. I can assure you
that they drove each other crazy at times. But they also fell in love
with denim and it must be in your DNA and that is what we looked for,”
added Hoitink, who helped pair the designers with the denim mills.

Each designer participating in the award ceremony had been tasked with
the challenge of creating five complete denim looks. Barbara Gnutti,
exports manager for Italian vertical denim mill ITV Denim, was paired
with Jonathan Christopher, which turned out to be a match made in
heaven.
“I am so happy we were given this opportunity. Jonathan is an amazing
guy, I have become best friends with him over these past few weeks,
even my colleagues make fun of how close we have become.”

“We have been working together for the past three weeks creating his
collection, but the time just flew by. He was a pleasure to work
with. He really knew what he wanted, he just walked around our factory
in Italy selecting the types of denim he wanted. Luckily his requests
were easy to to do, as we are Italians. We always say yes to any
request, and then see if it is possible to do. I am very excited about
his work, and share his feeling of excitement.”

ITV Denim: Jonathan “was a pleasure to work with”

Hailing from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Christopher graduated from
the Willem de Kooning Academy in 2009. He went on to earn his master’s
of fashion design at ArtEZ Fashion in Arnhem, graduating as part of
Generation 12. His collection caught designer Marc Jacobs’ eye and he
was selected as one of five finalists for Designer for Tomorrow by
Peek and Cloppenburg. Since then he has held expositions for his work
around the world and in addition to working on his own brand, he also
works freelance for brands such as Karl Lagerfeld.

Christopher says his collection was inspired by the urban nomad. “The
Nomadum collection gives a look in the different worlds of nomads.” He
used denim combined with alpaca wool to create a bomber jacket, for
example, a time consuming process which took 6 hours per panel to
make. He also created a denim bomber jacket, one he liked so much that
he ended up crafting a version for himself to wear during his
collection presentation to the judges.

Goldschmied, who was one of the four judges for the debut award
ceremony along with Jason Denham, founder of denim label Denham, Rene
Strolenberg, co-owner of denim store Tenue de Nimes and Norma Quinto,
managing director of Berlin based consultancy Quintoemilio GmbH, were
given the difficult task of selecting the winner. “It is absolutely
true that we had a difficult job in making a decision,” said ‘the
Godfather of denim’.

“I would have liked to give an award to everyone because I think they
put so much passion and energy into this project and they made this
project successful.” However, in the end there could be only one
winner. When asked if he was disappointed he did not win, Samji
laughed and said that just being a part of this project was already an
incredible experience for him. The London College of Fashion graduate
revealed that he had never thought of working with denim prior to
working on this project. “It really made me think about denim in a new
way.”

Bhavesh Samji: “I never realized how big the denim industry
really was before this project”

“I never realized how big the denim industry really was before this
project…this type of challenge limits your creativity to a certain
extent, but also makes you think of how to use fabrics in innovative
ways,” he adds. The competition also helped him see the commercial
side of the denim industry, and realize how denim is a viable fabric
to everyone. It helped him push his boundaries as a designer, to see
what denim really could be. “I liked being pushed to use it, and in
the future I will definitely be more open to incorporating it into my
work.”

The Global Denim Awards also celebrated the denim mill which produced
the best fabric during the competition, which went to Turkish vertical
denim mill Bossa. “We recognize the amazing job they have done in
sustainability and their ongoing determination to succeed. They
invested a lot of money and resources into the project.”

“Everything we are doing is a dream,” said Andrew Olah, founder of
denim trade fair Kingpins on the Global Denim Awards. “You could not
even imagine something like this, unless you are a dreamer.”

Photo credit: Simon Trel