We gave one scholarship and two mentorship programs for young creatives presenting at Feeric Fashion Week
Events
Promoting Young European Students at Feeric Fashion Week 2025
Date
24 July 2025
We partnered again with Feeric Fashion Week, one of the country’s most prestigious fashion events in Romania, offering a workshop by Giovanni Ottonello and a Summer Course scholarship at IED Barcelona in July 2026 to one of the participating designers from various European universities.
Polish student Michał Duraj won the contest with his design proposal “Escapism”. A romantic collection presenting drayed seams, patinated textures, and moth-eaten silks suggesting decay not as ruin, but as transformation. “The collection embraces the emotional harshness of summer, where beauty wilts, intensifies, and lingers. It celebrates loneliness not as emptiness, but as a space of creation, where fantasy blooms from constraint. Laced with nostalgia and charged with the drama of introspection, Escapism unfolds like a fever dream: theatrical, romantic, and defiantly vulnerable”, explains Duraj, current student at Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław.
“His proposal has a unique sensitivity, lightness, and romanticism,” says Giovanni Ottonello, IED Art Director and jury president of the contest. “There is no idea of going into the future, but rather of embracing the past and enhancing the present. He deserved the opportunity to dive into the world of Sustainable Fashion at IED Barcelona, and explore its future steps in the industry after his studies in interior and scenography design in Poland”.
The second award, a Mentorship with the IED Art Director, was given to Andrada Bianca Negru, from West University of Timisoara, for her collection “Far from the Others”. “She has a very clear what she wants to say in fashion, and she showed it by presenting a very coherent collection, in terms of concept, sustainability, and execution. We believed a mentorship program would guide her to develop his professional career in fashion”, stated Ottonello.
“Obedience in Fragments” by Blanka Gotić was the collection awarded with the mentorship of the President of Feeric Fashion Week, Mitichi Preda. Currently studying at University of Zagreb in Croatia, in the Faculty of Textile Technology. “The collection transformed such a delicate theme as Mormon identity into a collection with unexpected materials. With this mentorship, it will be the perfect opportunity to express this creativity and channel it towards professional growth”, explained the jury.
The contest was open to all students and recent graduates, aiming to provide young designers with valuable skills before they enter the fashion industry—with a deep knowledge on sustainability in Fashion, one of the most important topics to face the future of the industry.
"Escapism" by Michał Duraj
Full Scholarship for the Summer course in Sustainable Fashion (IED Barcelona, July 2026)
"Far from the Others" by Andrada Bianca Negru
Mentorship with IED Art Director
"Obedience in Fragments" by Blanka Gotić
Mentorship with Feeric Fashion Week
You may be interested in:
