10 ANNIVERSARY
The designers
In celebration of Unit F's 10th anniversary this years AFA-Austria Fashion Awards gala night will be accompanied by a fashion show presenting the current work of six outstanding past AFA-winners:
Awareness & Consciousness
Since 2005, fashion designer Christiane Gruber creates gently flowing and sensual collections based on high-quality jersey materials under the label name of Awareness & Consciousness. She completed her fashion degree under Raf Simons, Viktor&Rolf and Jean-Charles de Castelbajac at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. After receiving the Fashion Award of the Federal Austrian Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture (BMUKK) in 2002 Gruber gained international work experience at Haider Ackermann and A.F.Vandevorst in Antwerp. She has since presented many of her collections at Fashion Week in Paris.
DIPTYCH
The fashion label DIPTYCH was founded in 2009 and ist he joint project of designers Ali Zedtwitz, last years winner of the Fashion Award of the BMUKK, and Valerie Lange. They met during their studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and have already worked together as junior designers in former professor Raf Simons team at Jil Sander in Milan. In November of last year, their maiden collection - Im a victim of this song - had its celebrated debut during SPOT ON WIEN in Tokyo.
house of the very islands...
Content-wise, the house of the very islands... collections revolve around questions of gender identification and its construction and deconstruction through clothing. This leads to an allsex aesthetic that breaks with conventional and limiting forms and yet resists a uniform-like unisex character.
pelican
avenue
pelican avenue was founded in 2004 by designer Carolin Lerch. She graduated from the Fashion Department
at the Academy of Fashion Antwerp and afterwards worked as assistant to designer Bernhard Willhelm. Her label pelican avenue
has committed itself to questioning the conventional codes of fashion and adopting an opposite standpoint to trends and hypes.
The outcome: wearable and functional garments. pelican avenue regularly presents collections during Paris Fashion Week.
Peter
Pilotto
Peter Pilotto did a two-year art and fashion degree in London, worked as visual merchandiser for Vivienne
Westwood for three years and graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp as the most promising student.
His degree collection ... carried away by a moonlight shadow..., recognised by the Flanders Fashion Institute,
has atmospherically been running through his collections till this day. Since, he has been designing all his garments in collaboration
with Christopher De Vos. His designs embody the free playing with identities, defy explanation and hold some kind of
magical appeal. Hence, it is hardly surprising that from the very start he was internationally recognised as one of fashions
most promising new talents. He has since made a name for himself presenting his collections during London Fashion Week.
Wendy&Jim
The label Wendy&Jim consists of the two Vienna-based designers Helga Schania and Hermann Fankhauser. Both studied at
the University of Applied Arts Vienna under Helmut Lang. Their joint approach to fashion - radical changes instead of alterations
of surface details - led to the founding of the label in 1997. They describe their style as dry and slow. Each garment, each
piece within a collection is part of an overall theme, which in itself answers solely to an aesthetic concept. They regularly
present their collections during Prêt-à-porter in Paris.