What lies Beyond Fashion?

September is to fashion what January is to the rest of the world, a month of new beginnings, change, and Fashion Weeks. Hoping for a change in a time of year that symbolises the entire industry, nss' digital cover Beyond Fashion was born out of the desire to put the faces of new talents at the center of an ancient system, seeking a new paradigm and a different path from those already taken. An interview involving fifteen emerging brands paved the way for what would become a larger project, a manifestation in broad daylight of a research and reflection operation that nss has been quietly practicing on the sidelines for the past ten years among industry insiders.

This is how Beyond Fashion became a section dedicated to emerging creatives, voices outside the norm, and the observation of the internal dynamics of the system with the goal of subverting them. To inaugurate it, nss announced an award dedicated to the most deserving talents from the Fashion Graduate Italy contest. A showcase and a real growth opportunity within the industry that includes an interview in nss magazine for three finalists, along with an editorial produced by the nss magazine and nss gallery team. For the winner, a website, produced by Brownie, the digital department of the nss group, is added to showcase and sell their collection completely free of charge.

The soft-toned garments and fluid aesthetics of Martin Gissi, a design student at the Marangoni Institute in Milan, won the first prize, representing a functional aesthetic vision ready for sale and consumer engagement. Leather jackets, polo shirts, prints, and preppy-style shorts gave way to the other finalists, representing very different design ideas, from the soft and delicate lines of Tomas Joel Lara Munoz from the Accademia Costume e Moda to the futurism of the duo composed of Anna and Silvia Cristofolini from the Istituto Secoli. Talents that demonstrate how fashion can maintain its creative foundation while remaining grounded, functional without getting lost in the frills and anachronisms of couture, in a compromise that allows room for their own narrative and individuality. Today, more than ever, fashion must be a manifesto for social change, and to do so, it must engage with a reality that, despite its complexity, must be embraced and understood without fear.

You can find the new Beyond Fashion section on the nssmag.com website.