Koalaa and Moner Bondhu win big at Tommy Hilfiger Fashion Frontier Challenge

British initiative Koalaa and Bangladeshi start-up Moner Bondhu are the grand prize winners of the Tommy Hilfiger Fashion Frontier Challenge. The winners received their prizes on Thursday at Tommy Hilfiger's headquarters in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Both initiatives won the jury prize, but Koalaa also went home with the public prize, partly due to their moving presentation.

Five initiatives competed in the finals. First of all, there was Care + Wear, a New York-based healthwear company that makes clothing for people in hospital so they feel more comfortable than in traditional hospital clothing. The second finalist was Ida Sports, a British company that designs football boots specifically for women to improve their performance and comfort. Koalaa is also a British initiative that makes comfortable, affordable and soft prosthetics. The fourth finalist was Dutch-American company Tactus, which is developing "smart clothing" that allows people who are deaf to better experience music. Last but not least Moner Bondhu from Bangladesh provides accessible and affordable mental health care – especially to garment factory workers.

A total of 259 companies and initiatives applied for the Tommy Hilfiger Fashion Frontier Challenge. The entire process from application to the final takes a year. Last November, for example, the five finalists participated in a design sprint to further improve the product. On Thursday morning, just before the award ceremony, the finalists presented their initiative to a jury, which included Tommy Hilfiger himself, after which a decision was made.

When the word got out on Thursday that Koalaa and Moner Bondhu were the winners of the 200,000 euros and year-long mentorship programme at both Tommy Hilfiger and Insead, the emotion was palpable. Not only because of the nerves before the big moment, but also because the winners all had a personal reason for setting up and working on their initiatives. Take for example Tawhida Shiropa, the founder and CEO of Moner Bondhu, who used to watch her own mother struggle with her mental health. In addition, Koalaa founder Nate Macabuag's passionate story was only enhanced by marketing manager Nicole Brennan who spoke emotionally about what it is like to be able to hold her infant son, push the baby carriage and "spread her wings" thanks to arm prosthesis. The story clearly touched a large part of the audience, some of whom had to shed a tear, and the viewers of the live event. Koalaa was declared the audience favourite after an (online) voting round, earning an additional 15,000 euros.

Tommy Hilfiger Fashion Frontier Challenge: Koalaa and Moner Bondhu win big

This was now already the fourth edition of the Tommy Hilfiger Fashion Frontier Challenge, a competition created by the brand because it wanted to use its own platform to have a positive impact on the industry, CEO Martijn Hagman told FashionUnited. This edition focused specifically on initiatives that have a social impact. "We felt that in the social area there are not so many initiatives in the industry yet," said Hagman. For each edition of the Fashion Frontier Challenge, the company will continue to look at what types of initiatives the industry could desperately use at that time and focus on those in the call for applications. "We will always continue to develop and optimise the programme," he said.

The Fashion Frontier Challenge was created to make the industry better and help start-ups and scale-ups continue to grow. "We're not looking at what these companies do for us, but what we can do for them," Hagman said. But that doesn't mean that former finalists or winners aren't already linked to Tommy Hilfiger. Apon Wellbeing, for example, an initiative which makes life better for factory workers in Bangladesh through affordable health insurance, is still tied to the company. "The factories that Apon Wellbeing works with are also partly factories that Tommy Hilfiger works with so indirectly we also benefit because the factories become better," the top executive explained. Then there is last year's winner Lalaland, which uses artificial intelligence to create digital models. Tommy Hilfiger is working behind the scenes with the company on a pilot to implement these digital models as well. So a winner or not, there is always a chance Tommy Hilfiger will collaborate with the contestants.

Founder and designer Tommy Hilfiger closed the award ceremony with a final statement as well as a tip. "We can only change the industry with new ideas. So never give up."

This article originally appeared on FashionUnited.NL. Translation and edit by: Rachel Douglass.