Prague (10th November 2021) – The European Fashion Accelerator (EFA) starts on November 15th with a series of educational programmes to be streamed on the EFA webpage and youtube channel. The focus of this year’s EFA is creating a sustainability platform, supporting the rise of small businesses and wellbeing in the challenging online world. Eight young talents who were selected by an international jury of fashion experts will introduce their collections. The EFA is once again supported by the Visegrad Fund.
The European Fashion Accelerator was launched in 2012 as an initiative of the accomplished model, businesswoman and philanthropist Karolína Bosáková who rightly saw an opportunity in the market for fledgeling young creative talents in the Central European region. Over the years she has created strong partnerships with industry professionals and teamed up with art, fashion and design universities in the V4 countries: Cracow School of Art and Fashion Design (Poland), Moholy-Nagy university of art and design Budapest (Hungary), Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem (Czech Republic) and Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (Slovakia). Since then the EFA has hosted more than thirty expert fashion lectures, workshops and panels and introduced more than 60 young talented designers and helped them in starting up a successful career.
This year’s EFA focuses on the theme of sustainability and slow fashion. It will examine the relationship between the online world and its impact on creativity. Together with the partners, EFA strives to explore sustainability across borders of the V4 countries and create a Sustainability Collaboration Platform including a database of local manufacturers, producers and fashion experts.
The event is divided into two sections: the Talent Search and the Educational platform. The talent section will once again introduce eight designers under 28 years of age who were selected by an expert jury made up of the partner universities and fashion experts across the V4 selects. They will have the opportunity to present their collection with EFA’s guidance through a video presentation of the whole collection. The selected young designers will get the unique chance to get insight into making a fashion collection, from the pre-production to creating their collection, through to the professional photoshoot and video of their collection on the runway. This year these young talents – two from each V4 country – were selected: Anna Sibitka and Yaxian Feng from Hungary, LÅKA (Kristina Hončarivová & Laura-Andrea Žižková) and Anežka Macková from the Czech Republic, Łukasz Kubiński, Kamila Majka-Dziedzic from Poland and Juliána Brnáková and Natalis Repkovská from Slovakia. Adéla Babinská (also from Slovakia) received a Black Card from the jury – a participation in the project for the uniqueness of her collection.
The Educational platform is organized in collaboration with the university partners, business partners, ambassadors and will be attended by prominent fashion expert guests including Dyelog PR agency based in the UK, representative of Fashion Scout, and designers as well as a prominent psychologist.
There will be a series of lectures on the pros and cons of the online world, on new technologies, innovations, e-shop set up and promotions and how to keep with it all while maintaining a good work-life balance. Online masterclass introduced by the Cracow School of Art and Fashion Design and supervised by Rafal Satanowski its Art Director will give the young designers an invaluable insight on starting a new business and launching a successful clothing line. Additional Mentoring online programmes led by selected fashion experts will be available to the students and young designers in creative fields. The next missing piece – a Sustainability platform that teaches, mentors, educates and connects the conscious local designers, producers and experts will be established at this year’s EFA connecting the four Ambassadors of the V4 countries and creating a database that will be available at the project’s website.
All talks will result in inspirational educational podcasts and mentoring programmes to be streamed online and available to the public on the EFA website and youtube channels to educate, develop and give support to young talents.