For the first time, leading sports wear brand adidas and the British Fashion Council have joined forces in search of new design talent to launch the adidas ‘London 2012 Design award collection’. The adidas London 2012 sportswear design award in association with the BFC Colleges Council asked course tutors from many of the UK’s leading design colleges to take part in this exciting design opportunity.
The brief was to design an inspirational and innovative collection for style conscious urban 16 - 28 year olds, which represents London during the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Specific guidelines from the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) were to use their design identity and colour palette.
On January 28th 2011 a panel of industry judges chose the winning designs by Alexandra Gardner from Nottingham Trent University for her exceptional design ability and creative vision. Judges included representatives from adidas and the BFC as well as British Olympic athlete, Philips Idowu.
Alexandra was inspired by the work of artist Anish Kapoor who used large scale installations to reinvent old spaces. This concept was implemented by taking the heritage of the adidas brand and reinventing it with a fresh fashion approach. ‘I chose to use the London 2012 inspired grid pattern conceptually as a representation of people coming together’ says Alexandra Gardner. The one-off collection consists of women’s lifestyle and sports apparel; performance pieces include running tights and cross back tanks all with a striking graphic representation of the London 2012 grid design. Lifestyle pieces include structured hoodies and the must have festival fashion red poncho. Finally the signature adidas three stripes are positioned so that they wrap around the garments which results in a fresh take on the classic branding.
The collection is available nationwide from adidas stores and retail partners from 18th May 2012 and will be a must have for those wanting to mix performance wear with cutting edge style and design.
For further information and high resolution images please contact Talk PR
Hannah George, Talk PR
hannah.george@talkpr.com / +44 (0) 20 7268 6133
Image: A design by Alexandra Gardner