The Miguel Marmolejo School of Art has put Melilla’s creative talent back on the national scene by participating, for the fourth consecutive year, in the prestigious National Fashion Awards for Young Designers (ANDE Awards), the main fashion event for young designers in Spain.
The 39th edition of the contest, held at the Real Casa de Correos in Madrid, brought together 20 design promises from all over the country. The Melillense representation was in charge of Mara Ruiz, in charge of presenting “Cool Party”, a collective collection made by students of first and second grade of the Superior Degree of Styling and Clothing.
A sustainable, creative collection with a Melillense stamp
“Cool Party” brings together seven sets designed by María Huertas, Sualia Chanhout, Iris Gutiérrez Romero, Rocío Tejedor Sánchez, Kauso Mohamed Chkouta and Mara Ruiz herself.
This collection was born to represent fashion from the prism of sustainability and creativity, so recycling is a key element. Each design takes as its starting point jeans collected, turning them into new fabrics, thus symbolizing the possibility of granting a second life to textile materials, making wear an aesthetic value.
"Cool Party" is composed of seven unique sets, inspired by different universes: geometry, flowers, street fashion, preppy style or bold provocation. Each designer has reflected her own brand and style in each creation, making this collection unique. In addition, in the chromatic palette, blues and blacks predominate, creating contrasts that evoked texture and movement, turning the denim fabric into a canvas. In this way, this collection aims to celebrate the union between the urban and the conscious, with recycling and reinvention as transversal elements.
Institutional recognition of the talent of the School of Art
The Provincial Director of Education, Elena Fernández Treviño, has congratulated the students for this new achievement. “The creativity, artistic sensitivity and commitment to sustainability demonstrated by this collection reflect the enormous talent that exists in Melilla,” he said.
In the words of Fernández Treviño, “participation in the ANDE Awards consolidates the role of the School of Art as an educational and creative reference, and is a source of great pride for the whole city”. He also congratulated the teachers and students for their collective effort and their ability to turn artistic training into real projects that give visibility to the city and place Melilla in the national fashion scene.
For her part, the director of the School of Art, Bárbara Judel, stressed that this participation “not only represents a great achievement for our center, but also reflects how creativity and sustainability can walk together.” “This project shows that Melillense talent has its own voice in the national fashion scene. We are proud to see our students turn materials into ideas, and those ideas into authentic pieces of art,” he said.
Professor Mª Paz Manzorro, responsible for the Training Cycle of Styling and Clothing, has highlighted the teamwork of the students and the use of recycling, “promoting design and creativity and congratulates the students for the work done in their first collective collections”.