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Designers’ Nest Exhibition Prize 2020 has been awarded to Amina Saada, a Master’s student in Fashion, Clothing and Textile Design (FaCT). Amina Saada’s work Red Bride is now featured in the exhibition Absent Bodies at the outdoor plaza in front of the Designmuseum Danmark until 22 November. The exhibition is curated by Ane Lynge-Jorlén, director of Designers’ Nest and Pernille Stockmarr, curator and museum inspector at Designmuseum Danmark.

In her collection Wearable Sculptures, Saada centres on finding new techniques and shapes. She wants the audience to think about fashion in a completely new way.

Amina tells about her technique and inspiration: ”In my bachelor’s studies I was introduced to clay, mould making and casting and in my final year I participated in the Ways of Making 1 course. It was fantastic to be able to create different kinds of shapes by simply carving the clay. I wanted to explore the same technique on textiles.

“To start with, I made prototypes for a small barbie doll in order to get a feel for different shapes and forms. After that I moved on to a half-lifesize doll creating a voluptuous clay dress for it. When I was satisfied with it, I lined it with paper and copied the pattern to the paper. While doing this, I kept in mind the exact places for seams, so that it was possible for me to remove the form from the doll as well as facilitate the sewing of the final garment. To be able to flatten the three-dimensional form, I made darts in the pieces of pattern. I also needed a half-lifesize prototype of the textile in order to see how my pattern worked. The final pattern I digitized and printed in lifesize. Then all I had left was to sew everything together, and finish my master’s collection.

”My visual inspiration comes partly from 1960’s Space Age futurism and the Cocoon Wedding Dress by YSL — which resembles a butterfly in its cocoon. Often, a cocoon is considered something ugly, but a beautiful butterfly will emerge from it. What is beautiful and what is ugly? It depends on your standpoint. My collection is a blend of the ugly and the beautiful, you can find bumps and warped shapes in many surprising places in my garments. I want to raise questions like: is Red Bride a sculpture or a garment in its essence? In a way I’m designing ’ugly brides’ that make people think about our ever-changing beauty norms.”

The Designers’ Nest Exhibition Prize 2020 winners were selected on their skills, concept, aesthetic vision and ability to communicate in an exhibition context. The leading Nordic design contest, Designers’ Nest Award kicks off Copenhagen Fashion Week and is run in collaboration with six leading Nordic design schools. It was founded in 2003.