Recycling / Circular Economy

2025-09-11

French Designer Hugo Dumas named Joint Winner of the Redress Design Award 2025

French emerging designer Hugo Dumas has been named a joint winner of the prestigious Redress Design Award 2025, the world’s leading sustainable fashion competition. His five-look capsule collection was unveiled on Thursday, 4 September, during the award’s official runway show. Dumas shares the First Prize with Carla Zhang from Mainland China, marking the first time the competition has named two winners.

French designer Hugo Dumas has taken top honors at the Redress Design Award 2025, the world’s leading sustainable fashion competition, sharing the prize for the first time with Carla Zhang. The awards featured a runway celebrating emerging young designers, where Dumas unveiled his capsule “The Peri-Urbans.” Crafted with Recover recycled cotton fibers, the collection is a striking example of how circular design and sustainable materials can create innovative, high-quality fashion, demonstrating how creativity and environmental responsibility can coexist in the contemporary fashion industry. © 2025 Recover

According to the judging panel, both collections offered “distinctly outstanding circular solutions, worthy of equal support to amplify impact.” The winners will receive mentorship, an exclusive opportunity to showcase their collections at the Shanghai GREENEXT Expo 2025, and a limited-edition retail collaboration with renowned creative Flora Cheong-Leen, supported by the Tian Art Foundation. The award itself is supported by DHL.

Circular design featuring Recover™ Recycled Cotton fibers

Dumas’ capsule collection is distinguished by its strong commitment to circularity. Each look was designed using monocolor and monofiber principles, with external elements made to be easily removed, facilitating future recycling. The collection includes quilted garments such as a long coat, blazer, trousers, jacket, and accessories like a handbag and a Gavroche-style cap, all in black or white. The outer fabric combines Recover™ recycled cotton fibers with RCS-certified organic cotton, produced in collaboration with Polopiqué. A defining feature is the use of Recover™ RCotton fibers, made from 100% recycled cotton, as padding for the quilted pieces. This ensures the entire look remains monofiber and monocolor throughout. According to a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) externally validated by EcoReview (2025), Recover™ recycled cotton fibers offer significant environmental benefits, including a 99.9% reduction in water usage and 93% lower CO? emissions compared with conventional cotton.

Titled “The Peri-Urbans”, Hugo Dumas’ collection presents an intimate reflection on his personal identity and his home region of Essonne, France. Embracing uncertainty and duality, his silhouettes capture the person he has grown to be, at once masculine and feminine, rural and urban, artisanal and industrial.

“I’ve come to understand that creation is pollution, that every garment, even when designed to last, is meant to be seen as ‘soon-to-be-waste.’ My collection meets the criteria of the ESPR rules, because by planning their end of life, we also plan their next life.”