BIAAF International Fashion Design
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Project Description
BIAAF is MUCH MORE THAN FASHION: it is creativity, design, art, education, entrepreneurship, talent, culture. It is a platform devoted to discovering, supporting and launching promising fashion designers from around the world who show a high dose of talent and innovation. Based in Bilbao and running many activities, BIAAF identifies the emerging designers that will support, in a biannual fashion design competition inspired in Art, aimed at young creatives from all over the world (aged 18 to 35).
Geographical Scope
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Urban or rural issues
Physical or other transformations
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Description of the project
Summary
After 13 years, Bilbao Art & Fashion (BIAAF) has already established itself as a benchmark for the sector in Europe, connected to over 7.000 designers worldwide coming from over 700 design schools and universities, 92 countries, 5 continents, and thus contributing as a driving force for creative companies.
Based in Bilbao, we as BIAAF, spot local and international talent, for whom we open academic and business opportunities, fostering the development of an ecosystem of collaboration, co-creation, and a sense of community, mitigating the trend towards "atomization" of the emerging fashion sector, through common itineraries, and centralized infrastructures and services. This has allowed us to open and consolidate professional opportunities for designers and agents belonging to the fashion value chain in our Territory.
First, we BIAAF detect and attract talent through our contest and provide them visibility. Secondly, in collaboration with renowned universities in fashion design, we look forward to training specific skills that will later benefit the designers. Subsequently, we form partnerships with companies and institutions to develop collaborative projects and work placement access. Furthermore, through an Entrepreneurship Lab, we look forward to helping the development of local businesses and the launch of emerging fashion brands.
At a macro level, a second Guggenheim effect turned Bilbao into a cultural setting that must be integrated within its society. Scouting people to enter the creative industries goes beyond just learning about culture, but moreover, becoming an impact that makes the employment sector thrive. The project is an example of the public to private collaboration that pushes forward the strategies set in place by governments.
All projects developed by BIAAF revolve around UN Sustainable Development Goals: "Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all".
Key objectives for sustainability
BIAAF acts as a catalyst to make Bilbao a reference city with regard to emerging fashion design. It contributes to boosting new businesses in the creative fields within the Basque Country, focusing on the use of design to enable sustainable economic growth. Pioneering in the development of the fashion sector, BIAAF became an official partner of the UN in 2018 for the development of SDGs 4, 5, 8, 10, 12, and 17 in the region.
Our experience over the years comes by supporting creative young people, financing their training, and guiding them in their process of incorporation into the business sector; we improve their productivity, increase their competitiveness and capacity to integrate employment, thus guaranteeing the progress of the system in the medium and long term.
For the contest, sustainability is omnipresent as a transversal value taken into account for the judging process: it should be woven into the participating projects and their design. The designers develop capsule collections aimed at positioning themselves in a medium-high segment in terms of design and quality, with a marked identity and "Km 0" production, with the competitive advantage of being able to differentiate themselves in a market, presenting limited edition pieces that revalue the role of fashion and design as a pillar of innovation.
In the Laboratory phase, a few units of each collection are produced (between 50 and 200 pieces in total), satisfying the customer's appetite for novelty and offering an attractive alternative for the consumer who is fleeing from "fast fashion". It is a new way of consuming fashion, and more brands and designers are opting for this formula.
More processes taught to the participating designers are circular and ethical practices. That part of training is oriented to the development of specific skills (circular and digital design, biomaterials use, creating commercial collections, entrepreneurship...) for young local creatives.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
BIAAF is a model of interregional, transdisciplinary formation based in Europe, working hand in hand with students and professionals from international institutions. The work with younger people from many schools provides an insight into upcoming trends. We transmit European design to the rest of the world and they reinterpret it depending on their roots.
New Bauhaus is about creating modernity departing from traditions and humanistic values and visions like the unification of art and design. We look to develop the capability of young designers to create beautiful pieces based on a holistic approach, so they incorporate them into present-day society, with a common theme: fashion and art, interpreted by people from five continents.
Furthermore , the collections developed at BIAAF’s Lab consist of merging traditional and cultural aspects of fashion, re-inventing them in a contemporary manner with newer trends, maintaining roots and creating storytelling. This derives into a strongly built identity into more contemporary clothes.
Another example showcasing these values is BIAAF’s participation in “Transmissions”, a project set up in collaboration with the Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum: an exchange with schools around the world, taking as guidelines the archives of iconic Balenciaga garments, to reinterpret them in order to create contemporary collections with a new identity. By transmitting legacies of the European creative genius to the rest of the world, internationals can link what they have learned to their own culture and roots.
Participating in programmes organized in conjunction with leading schools and cultural institutions such as Central Saint Martin's (London); London College of Fashion, Polimoda (Firenze). Designers are creatively free to project concepts, whether abstract or concrete, even commissioned for other institutions (Guggenheim Museum, BBK Live Music Festival, among others) or inspired by a specific theme, as in the case of the SEI.
Key objectives for inclusion
BIAAF makes an effort to improve the quality of life by providing business opportunities for emerging local and international designers and becoming an engine that contributes to creative companies and makes the city of Bilbao a launching pad for emerging fashion and design.
As the Guggenheim effect has made the city transition into an embodiment of creativity and culture, BIAAF has evidenced that fashion, design, and art are essential in this landscape. In a participatory aspect, citizens and public institutions have been engaged in considering fashion as a driving force for this evolution.
For equal opportunity, it’s a project with no fee for participation: anyone within the age range can apply regardless of gender, nationality, or whether it is through a university or independently. Moreover, the age range (18 to 35) is set mainly to help the youth enter the labor field.
We aim to empower young creatives to make their own entrepreneurial initiatives. We believe in all these people as the engine of economic development and activators of change. BIAAF supports and connects them so that they grow to inspire others, thus achieving a multiplier effect of the project.
Through education, transformation, and under the premise of "learning by doing" in a real work environment in terms of processes, deadlines, suppliers, and clients, the participating designers develop their business projects with personalized support and centralized infrastructures and services, to ensure a successful result. Then a small group of selected designers is to be provided with the tools so they might begin a startup in the future.
We aim to help young creatives improve their skills, promote entrepreneurship, professionalize emerging fashion designers, and an international innovation network of professional contacts with recognized international prestige and qualified experience in the creative and fashion sector, both in the cultural and business spheres.
Results in relation to category
For “sense of belonging”, we see it important to guide these young designers, launch them successfully on the market and contribute to the transformation of our Territory in a sustainable way. Having young people prepared to work in this new scenario is key to giving impetus to the creative fashion industry in Bilbao/Bizkaia. Activating them as agents of change is needed to achieve a committed society aware of its ability to generate a positive impact. Access to the labor market and entrepreneurship support guarantees the continuity, professionalization, growth, prosperity, and innovative character of the fashion sector in Bilbao.
As a result of internationalization, training at the forefront of trends (Central Saint Martins, Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum, workshops and bootcamps aimed at developing specific professional skills) and advice from our international expert committee, out of a group of 75 local designers we have been working with over the last three years, 60% were incorporated to a European circuit of excellence designers, which include graduates from 10 of the best fashion design schools, 91% are working, as employees or self-employed thanks to our work experience programmes, collaborative projects with companies and the activity carried out in the Fashion Lab, mitigating the local talent drain and acting to stop it.
The competition is a tool to detect talent, train it, give it an identity, and generate a dialogue on art and fashion with those involved; working with the designers of the future. It takes it further by seeking to generate wealth, employment, and synergy with other countries and cultures. Most importantly, it also helps young designers enter into the market, generates employment and economy, and raises interest for culture and creativity from Bilbao to the international scene.
How Citizens benefit
What started as a contest has grown in many aspects, mainly due to actively participating with and listening to the partakers and designers involved. The advancement of the project consists of looking into their needs and co-designing solutions to keep innovating the project. The training provided depends on the needs of the students/designers and on the demands of the companies and industries they’re working with.
Bilbao has become a European city that bids on the industry of creativity, this generates synergies through concrete actions that benefit the citizens and the city. BIAAF involves the participation of civil society, local and institutional authorities (like Bilbao City Council and Bizkaia Provincial Council, BBK Foundation), and a jury composed of academia and people from industrial fields, arts, and media.
A notable benefit to civil society is reflected in the economic progress we seek to create through the empowerment of these industries, by generating a value chain that stays within Europe, with an effort to consolidate the entire industrial production process of the collections locally, taking into account every part of the process. Likewise, collections of accessories are mainly produced in social inclusion workshops. This way, we go beyond promoting the careers of young designers, but also the entire value chain.
A model of interdisciplinarity can be found in transversal collaborations between formative courses where an exchange is created. For example, BIAAF’s collaboration with Digipen Institute of Technology, by using video game technology to create sellable digital fashion garments and to bring new professionals into the NFT’s sector. This serves to continue generating jobs and wealth, working with new professions, and rejuvenating the population of this industry. As a result of this and internationalization, this nourishes and makes the value chain of the fashion sector in Bilbao sustainable over time.
Physical or other transformations
Innovative character
Thanks to its international networks and strategic alliances, BIAAF has been able to innovate in the way of selecting local and international talent, in the development of groups of excellence, in top-level training in cutting-edge international projects, in internships in companies, and in facilitating the return to Bizkaia of local talent. These supported local and international talents make the value chain of the fashion sector in our Territory sustainable over time.
Besides the Lab that is aimed at developing entrepreneurial skills and launching emerging fashion brands, we also hold other training activities such as forums, conferences, workshops, and masterclasses (in person or online). The intention is to benefit young designers in our area and project Bilbao's potential as a territory of opportunity in terms of the development of creative industries and the emerging fashion sector.
We train on entrepreneurship offering seminars in the London College of Fashion on the essentials that every designer should take into account when managing and communicating their own brand. Also, at ISEM Fashion Business School with a course on fashion entrepreneurship, given by fashion company managers, in which the aim is to transmit the functioning of fashion companies from their own experience and first-hand knowledge of the sector (El Corte Inglés, Aristocrazy, El Ganso...).
We provide skills on circular design through participation in the Design Research Society Labs that will take place in Bilbao in collaboration with the Center for Circular Design of the University of the Arts London to learn more about research and circular design methods for complex collaborations. Participants will have the opportunity to meet designers, researchers, and key agents within the value chain, both from the design sector and from other sectors not related to design.
Learning transferred to other parties
Going beyond making this process exportable to other regions and scalable, it can be paralleled with SDG 17 “Partnership for the Goals”. BIAAF is looking for similar institutions in other geographical areas to broaden the field and join forces through the exchange of designers and ideas to achieve the same objectives. Regarding the transfer of the project, beyond replication, a synergy with similar organizations and schools is sought, as they deal with similar problems, solutions and contributions are shared together, although they may vary depending on the contexts.
Stronger and expanded synergies allow us to continue scaling the project, generate lasting competitive advantages for the sector, and improve the internationalization and global competitiveness of Basque fashion designers and emerging companies.
Nonetheless, the approach of the contest is reproducible not only in fashion but also in any branch of design or art such as product design, photography, apps, etc., to boost the talent of artists and creatives, whether in Europe or another continent.
There is an intention to turn this process into a system. The Entrepreneurship Lab has proved to be a powerful tool that provides these young people with the knowledge and professionalism necessary to subsequently undertake their own projects. The method is therefore replicable and scalable, so we intend to project the tool that makes it possible: a specific launcher for emerging fashion brands.
The activities carried out: competitions, courses, exhibitions, workshops, seminars, forums, publications, etc., have made it possible to preserve and consolidate a regular and continuous relationship over time with key agents in the sector, becoming true prescribers and mentors of the project, linking them to Bilbao through our Advisory Council.
