H&M introduces the ‘H&M Design Award’: a new competition for grad students of renowed fashion schools all over Europe. Students from fourteen institutes in six countries will compete for a price of €50.000 and the possibility to sell a part of their collection in selected H&M stores this year.

The selected fashion institutes are: Beckman’s College of Design (Stockholm) and Borås Textilhögskolan (Borås) – Sweden; DKDS (Copenhagen) and Design Skolen Kolding (Kolding) – Denmark; the Universität der Kunste UdK (Berlin), the University of Pforzheim (Pforzheim) and Weissensee (Berlin) – Germany; University of Brighton, School of Architecture & Design (Brighton), Central Saint Martins (London) and the London College of Fashion (London) – Great Britain; the ArtEZ Institute of Arts (Arnhem) and AMFI in Amsterdam – The Netherlands; the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Antwerp) and La Cambre (Brussels) – Belgium.

Students will compete on national level first before they move on to the international competition. The winner of the jury price will present his/her collection during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Stockholm. The competition can be followed online; portraits of designers, images, jury meetings and the live presentation of the winning collection on February 1st. Ann-Sofie Johansson, head of the designer department at H&M, will write about the progress of the competition in a blog, there are interviews with jury members and you can vote for your favorite designer.