Renaissance student competition: inspiring upcycled student creations

In early 2023, Renaissance, the École de mode of Cégep Marie-Victorin and Vestechpro launched an upcycling Fashion Design Competition for second- and third-year students in the École de mode Fashion Design programme. The aim of the student competition was to imagine and create a highly creative outfit by repurposing and transforming ten white shirts and a tie, all supplied by Renaissance.

Anne-Marie Laflamme of atelier b was on hand for the official launch of the competition in February 2023, sharing thoughts, projects and achievements of the eco-responsible Montreal brand that the designer, herself a graduate of Cégep Marie-Victorin, co-founded over ten years ago.
 

Following this event and an initial period of conceptual work by the students, a jury met in March to assess the inspiration boards and concepts designed for the competition. Jury members included two representatives from the industry: Anne-Marie Laflamme of atelier b and Noémie Vaillancourt of the Noémiah brand; Christine Provost, a teacher at the Cégep's École de mode; Marie-Claude Masson, Director of Communications and Marketing at Renaissance; and Joanne Ducharme and Marie-Jade Lucier, Technical Director and Research Assistant respectively at Vestechpro.

After the jury, the students had almost a month to work on their concept, based on the comments made by the members of the jury.

The concepts imagined by the future designers were also presented at the Fashion Revolution week fair, organised by Christine Provost and Charles Bertrand of Cégep Marie-Victorin's École de mode.

The jury met again in April to assess the designs which were made up by the students and determine the winners of the competition.
The winner was officially honoured at the Fondation Cégep Marie-Victorin's Fashion Gala, where the garments were presented to the public on live models.
 

Marianne Dubé, Catherine Rocheleau and Mélodie Brosseau-Gagnon, the three non-winning finalists, each received $100 prizes for their work. The final winner, Nolwenn Benoist, received an official trophy and a $500 prize.
The competition was made possible thanks to the financial support from the Ville de Montréal, and is part of the Renaissance project for the reduction, reuse and recycling of post-consumer clothing in Montreal.

The aim of this activity was to raise awareness among the next generation of fashion designers of circularity strategies that can be activated by the fashion industry, such as upcycling.
The students' work was evaluated in terms of creativity and quality (tailoring), as well as the optimal use of the materials made available (the quantity of non-recycled material and the associated weight were taken into account as part of the evaluation criteria).
We would like to thank everyone involved that made this project possible: the members of the jury, Renaissance, the Ville de Montréal, and the École de mode at Cégep Marie-Victorin.
Together, we are proud to be contributing to the development of more circular fashion practices.