The Woolmark Company is gearing up to announce its annual International Woolmark Prize winner on April 26, and to get excitement buzzing around its talented finalists, the company enlisted 2020 Grammy-nominated artist and British Fashion Awards 2015 Fashion Innovator winner FKA Twigs to direct a short film showcasing the designers’ collections.
“It is an honor to be chosen by the Woolmark Prize to work with such talented designers and to create my first piece of work with Juliano Nunes, innovator of dance for the Avant Garden collective,” said Twigs in a press release.
The International Woolmark Prize encourages designers to think about creating in a playful and boundary-pushing way. Each designer must use wool and sustainable practices to create a collection that uses better industry practices and promotes supply chain transparency.
There’s been a legacy of renowned designers winning the prize, including Valentino Garavani who was one of the prize’s first winners when he was a student studying fashion in Paris. In 1954, Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld also were named winners of the prestigious prize.
This year’s finalists: Ahluwalia, Egonlab, Jordan Dalah, MMUSOMAXWELL, Peter Do, Rui, and Saul Nash, were inspired by Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi’s way of seeing play as a mode of creative exploration to encapsulate the 2022 prize’s theme, “Play.”
Twigs’ film, titled “Playscape,” features the musician, along with model Kai-Isaiah Jamal, dancer Kiddy Smile and DJ Princess Julia in an empty gallery where they begin to dance and expressively move around various sculptures (playscapes) by Noguchi, all while wearing the merino wool designs.
Watch the fun and playful short film, above, before the designers take the final stage in London later this month to present their collection to a jury including supermodel Naomi Campbell, disability and fashion advocate, Sinéad Burke, Alaïa creative director Pieter Mulier, British Vogue Editor-in-Chief and European Editorial Director Edward Enninful OBE, Burberry Chief Creative Officer Riccardo Tisci and Hermès Women’s Ready-to-Wear Artistic Director Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski, to name a few.
