What was your motivation to participate in the Triumph International Fashion Award?

Paz Soto Salinas: "I always try to stay informed on fashion either via magazines or via internet. It really caught my interest, when I read about the Triumph Fashion Award last year, but it was already too late to participate. Gladly I could make it this time, especially since I enjoy this year’s theme very much. As I am only returning to fashion design I consider this an interesting experience and a great opportunity.”

Kirsten Hiller: "My friend Ann-Christine Wriedt from ESMOD brought my attention to this contest. Quickly I became enthused about the requirements and tasks which needed to be fulfilled. To unite sexy lingerie with outer garments and combine those with the themes Rock and Mozart presented a very attractive challenge for me.  Besides that my final collection at ESMOD also involved integrating lingerie. However, in this case it meant combining glamorous evening wear with turn of the century (19th-20th) Western wear - a world I'm familiar with. I can very well imagine that some time in the near future this kind of conglomeration will be used by a wide range of designers and that it will be welcomed by the majority of their clientele.”

How would you describe your design concept? What was your first thought about the requirement “lingerie as an integral part of clothes”.

Tatiana Pogrebnyak: "My first thought for “lingerie as integral part of clothes” was, - visible part of clothes, still a part and not a solo fashion piece. It is nice to see fashion magazines with lingerie styling for an outerwear, and I like it. But not many would be able to show the street their underwear as it is. So the next thought was how I am going to combine the lingerie, which is visible, but already not underwear. I decided for lingerie as a "built-in" part of the garment to be my concept. The lingerie is as integrated into the garment silhouette, as it was designed this way from the beginning. The design itself is inspired by the underwear mood. Fabrics and materials should be matched exactly to the bra, so that it would merge and turn into a garment part. Panties take their part to complete the upper layer design and create a total look.”

Paz Soto Salinas: "The basic concept was trying to design something that not only would reveal the lingerie, but looked like an entity, like lingerie and clothes were designed at the same time, belonging together. Although it turned out to be more difficult than I thought, I believe to have managed pretty well. In my first designs I tried out different fabrics of varied colors, but then decided for what had been used for the lingerie, perhaps incorporating one additional fabric. With too many colors and textures, and other details the lingerie would lose exposure.”

Kirsten Hiller: "When I got the news about the theme of the Triumph fashion contest I was really excited! The theme was perfect!  First of all, I have always loved Mozart. I studied music and played the clarinet before I started studying fashion design. Mozart was a true genius and he still had a great sense of humor. Secondly, for my final collection for school I also used the theme "underwear on the outside". Thirdly, adding the theme "rock" gave it a great edge. So I started doing research by looking through fashion history books, rock magazines, and fashion trend web pages. I must have made at least 50 sketches before I decided which three I would choose to enter in the contest. I wanted to have a good mix between Rococo and Rock that you could wear on a night on the town and all that with a playful touch; sexy but innocent. I had a lot of fun with this contest, and I give my respect to Fashionoffice.org and Triumph for organizing such a wonderful contest.”

1. Mozart  3. Fashion...