Black Excellence Prize June 2021

Deadline for submission - Monday 17th May, 2021 18:00. Full details below.

FACE members have been working with the Graduate Fashion Foundation to create the Black Excellence Prize. Our aim from the start has been to amplify Black creativity as a broad and limitless possibility and inspire all young Black and Brown creatives to find belonging in a prize that recognises their unique contribution to style, culture, fashion and society.

“The FACE Black Excellence Prize acknowledges the historical contribution of our unsung previous greats, to create the first of many new opportunities for this generation to shine.”

“FACE is delighted to focus national and international attention on young creatives so deserving of the spotlight. Through the creation of this prize, we invite future visionaries to enjoy rightful and long-awaited recognition of Black and Brown contribution to fashion and culture.”

Open to all Black and Brown final year students in any BA fashion related course in the UK, the winner will be presented with their prize as part of the prestigious annual Graduate Fashion Week Awards to be held on Friday 18th June, following two rounds of judging panels.

The award will be judged by an esteemed industry panel

The award will be judged by an esteemed industry panel of; NewGen Prize-winning and LVMH Award Shortlisted Designer Bianca Saunders, Creative Director and Cultural Curator Harris Elliott and Designer, Educator and Co-Founder of FACE Andrew Ibi.

Judges Bianca Saunders, Harris Elliott and Andrew Ibi

For the first time in its 30-year history, this particular prize is open to all further education institutions

For the first time in its 30-year history, this particular prize is open to all further education institutions and not just those that are members of the Graduate Fashion Foundation. FACE are keen to ensure that we can reach all our young creatives nationwide. Students are able to nominate themselves by submitting their final projects alongside video or written statements in support of their work.

See competition criteria further down this feature.

“Visibility is the key for Black and Brown students,” says Bianca Saunders, Designer and Award Judge. To see people that are doing well and showing how high they can aim is important. As a student I was determined to break ceilings and not allow anything to stop me as I thought a younger version of me would be inspired to see someone in a position that is progressive for the industry! The Black Excellence Award is an amazing platform.”

Portrait by Ryan O Toole

“Being a Black student in education continues to be a challenge,” says Andrew Ibi, FACE Co-Founder, Educator, award judge and award winning alumni of GFW, but being a Black student in Fashion 25 years ago was a different proposition altogether. GFW was an opportunity for me to communicate fashion through culture and push some very powerful Black narratives. Winning was a surprise - but the storytelling was undoubtedly some of the most powerful seen at GFW. It was performative, we set a book alight whilst our 12 individually, character based, street-cast Black models recited The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”. 

“Getting through to Graduate Fashion Week, The Gala and also winning GFW People’s Choice Award 2017 was an amazing experience for me,” says past Graduate Fashion Week award winner Yingi Goma from UCA Rochester who won the People’s Choice Award in 2017. “It was a journey that made me realise the endless possibilities of what can be achieved and not settling for less.”

Competition Criteria

FACE are delighted that this award makes visible, the spectrum of Black excellence within a framework of diverse Black and Brown creativity.

Eligibility

Open to all Black and Brown final year students in any BA fashion related course in the UK that could include but is not limited to journalism, marketing, photography, communication, fashion design, textile design, hair and make-up design, styling, creative direction.

Your Institution does not have to be a member of the Graduate Fashion Foundation.

Anyone who identifies as non-white, experiencing themselves in a cultural minority in the UK, terms of skin tone, ethnicity or heritage may enter.

Submission

For this prize students can self-nominate. Tutors are not required to be involved in the selection of student work.

- Please submit your final BA project for consideration. 

- You will need to include your Institution, Course and Tutor to be considered.

Criteria

·       Upload a selection of your final project of no more that 15 pages in one continuous PDF.

·       You must also either:

o   Submit a film of no longer that 59 secs on Instagram detailing the ideas and outcomes of your project with the hashtag #FACEBlackExcellence.  Students will not be judged upon the quality of the film submission, but its content and the way in which ideas, personality and mood are communicated as part of the film presentation.

o   Or submit a written statement of no more than 500 words detailing the ideas and outcomes of your project

·       Page submissions can be a maximum of 10mb.

·       No physical products can be submitted, a full digital submission only.

Process

Part 1

Monday 17th May, 2021 18:00 - Deadline for submission

This is a digital submission of a maximum of 15 pages of your BA project and a filmed hash-tagged Instagram post or written statement.  Shortlisted students will be asked to send their full portfolio for final judging in June

Please upload your page submission here

Selection

Industry experts will shortlist 10 students from entries submitted.

Thursday 27th May, 2021 - The names of the shortlisted students will be announced.

28th - 31st May 2021 - Shortlisted students must send via WeTransfer to Graduate Fashion Foundation their full completed entry (portfolio) for the final judging panel to view digitally.

Thursday 3rd and Friday 4th June 2021 - Judging in central London by an esteemed industry panel.

5 finalists will be shortlisted and their names announced on the GFW website on the evening of the judging.

Friday 18th June - The GFW awards ceremony will announce the winner.

Prize 

A winner will receive £250.

X2 runner ups will also be announced and receive £150 each.

The winner will be presented with their prize at the Graduate Fashion Week Awards 2021.

Text and studies Caryn Franklin

Studies show Black creativity is often judged within a framework of white perception and experience of creativity: Blackness is viewed in association to whiteness and white experience by white stakeholders and gatekeepers.

Self‐reported differences in creativity by ethnicity and gender (Kaufman 2006). People of colour approaching task or creativity differently, only to be misinterpreted by white stakeholders.

Black student progression and attainment is hampered by colonial/white educational formats. These formats exist within environments of unacknowledged race privilege by white educators. These white educators display limited acknowledgment of race barriers and related causes of higher-drop out for Black students; thus, few Black creatives make it through to nomination stages of awards such as the Graduate Fashion Week awards.

Centering, naming and learning through Black Creativity. The Black Transformative Arts Network (2020). We have not always been the architects of our own story.

The Black Excellence Award seeks to name the solution. Leadership through amplification of race equality action.

Centering Race in a Framework for Leadership Preparation (Gooden & Dantley 2012). The assertive use of race language in creating a theory to guide educational leadership practice is one of the initial ways to begin the problem-solving process.

The Black Excellence Award will uplift, celebrate and reward Black creativity, inspiring all young Black and Brown creatives to find belonging in an award that recognises their unique and thus far sidelined and appropriated contribution to style, culture, fashion and society. This award begins the vital education of white creatives, to directly challenge tendency towards cultural appropriation and adoption of Black and Brown narratives resulting from white entitlement and race ignorance.

Soul Thieves: White America and the Appropriation of Hip Hop and Black Culture (Baruti N. Kopano 2014). Much of what America has presented as uniquely American - “music, dance, fashion, humour, spirituality, grassroots politics, slang, literature, and sports - was uniquely African-American in origin, conception, and inspiration.