In a thick whirlpool of fashion labels, fighting your way to successful air is a near impossible task. The competition swells every year and garnering the media attention – and solid cash – to be in with a chance is a task in many cases achieved thanks to the right connections, or a pot of gold. So when the industry’s big fish step in to help it’s a happy day indeed.

High-street giant MANGO has done exactly this with the establishment of the MANGO Fashion Awards. Now in its fifth edition, the competition aims to nurture young talent in the fashion industry by providing designers with a heavyweight media platform and the opportunity to realise and market their designs to a global audience. It’s a killer combination, made even sweeter by the cool €300,000 destined for the final winner (the largest award of its kind, according to MANGO). All this is further polished by the joint support of five of Europe’s most prestigious fashion design schools: Central Saint Martins; Escola Superior de Disseny (Barcelona); Institut Français de la Mode (Paris); Istituto Marangoni (Milan-Paris-London) and The Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Antwerp and the special collaboration of this leading designer platform. 

The difficulty with many awards in this field is the geographic restrictions placed on their scope. MANGO’s award is Spanish at heart yet fully recognises the increasingly globalised nature of the fashion industry. Thailand, Belgium, Israel and South Korea are amongst the home countries on the past winners roll call.

This year’s registration period opens on March 15, with designers given until mid-May to present their applications. A jury made up of representatives from MANGO and the five design schools will whittle the numbers down to 10 outstanding finalists, who will present their collections at the final ceremony in October. Designers, it’s time to whip fashion’s whirlpool into submission.

As inspiration, we present two collections from previous years – Sandrina Fasoli and Michaël Marson from year one, Lee Jean Yuon from year two and Wisharawish from year four. 

For more info, head over to MANGO