“Thank you for having me. What a great year it’s been for our contestants,” says Vogue’s Edward Enninful, addressing a room of 250 guests, creatives and celebrities from the global fashion world. Anna Wintour is in attendance, as are H&M’s creative director Jörgen Andersson and models Paloma Elsesser and Winnie Harlow. As Enninful concludes his speech and turns his attention to the white envelope in his hand, the designers standing behind him hold their breath. “And the winner is…”
At the Forces for Fashion event at Berlin’s Kronprinzenpalais in late September, the Vogue Fashion Fund – valued at €100,000 including a mentorship programme and prize money – was awarded in Germany for the very first time. Founded by Condé Nast and the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 2003, the renowned initiative is already established in the US, UK, China and Spain.
The goal is to help emerging designers establish their brands in the global fashion market. Eligible labels must have been around for two to 15 years and are evaluated based on sustainability, diversity, innovation, creativity and marketability. This year, Vogue Germany and Fashion Council Germany (FCG) brought the award here – and its first recipient is a designer whose fashion journey started in Berlin.
Kasia Kucharska’s latex-lace designs evidently fit the vision of the fund perfectly. With her eponymous label, Kucharska left her six fellow contestants, including global headline-grabbing label Namilia (google their SS25 Ozempic look), in the dust. “As an up-and-coming designer from Berlin, we saw great potential in [Kucharska] and her designs. Especially her creative and unique approach to rethinking fashion convinced me and the jury,” says Scott Lipinski, CEO of Fashion Council Germany and a member of the eight-person jury.
Being the first recipient … is a testament to the level of fashion education available in the Hauptstadt.
The idea for the innovative 3D-printed lace, already spotted on the likes of Julia Fox and Charli xcx, originated from Kucharska’s master’s thesis at Berlin’s Universität der Künste, where she studied Fashion Design. In it, she outlined a technique that manually applied liquid silicone to tights to create a sturdy structure resembling lace. (Kucharska once told Check-Out magazine that this is because she’s bad at sewing and wanted to avoid it.) After graduating in 2019, she teamed up with fellow students Wanda Wollinsky and Reiner Törner to develop a method for digitally printing the lace, enabling its mass production.
The result is a truly unique and versatile material, at times incorporated in other garments, at others forming entire web-like bodysuits, bralettes, gloves and stockings. “Kasia’s work is a special example of a successful interplay between fashion and technology. By focussing on materiality and its technical possibilities, she succeeds in creating new aesthetics in fashion,” says Valeska Schmidt-Thomsen, a professor of design at the UdK.
Kucharska is originally from the Allgäu region in southern Germany, and also spent time studying architecture in Stuttgart and Kyoto, Japan, before landing in Berlin – the city that made her a fashion designer. Being the first recipient of the FCG/Vogue Fashion Fund is not just a testament to her creative talent but to the level of fashion education available in the Hauptstadt. “We are delighted with the success of Kasia, who has the opportunity to further expand her field of activity with this award,” Schmidt-Thomsen says.
In addition to the prize money of €25,000, Kucharska and her team will get to pick the brains of industry experts as part of a year-long business mentorship programme, benefit from editorial coverage from Vogue Germany and receive further financial backing for her show at Berlin Fashion Week early next year. “A huge thank you to the jury and to everyone who supports us and believes in our vision,” Kucharska said via Instagram three days after receiving the award. The upcoming showcase is the first time that her label is represented at Berlin Fashion Week, but we already know: it will be one for the ages.
