MBFWMadrid FW24: Allianz Ego, Mercedes-Benz Fashion Talent announce winners

On Sunday, February 18, the last day of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week (MBFW) Madrid FW24, nine emerging Spanish fashion brands presented their collections on the runway as part of the Allianz Ego Mercedes-Benz Fashion Talent competition. In addition, the designs of 15 other brands were featured in the Allianz Ego Showroom for the duration of the 5-day event.

Spanish fashion educators have been invited to be members of the juries evaluating the young brands’ fashion designs for both of these competitions. Madrid’s University of Design, Innovation and Technology helped create the Allianz Ego Confidence in Fashion prize.

After evaluating each of the nine collections presented on the Allianz Ego runway, a professional jury selected designer Peter Sposito, an alumnus of the fashion design programme at the Burgos School of Arts and Design (EASD Burgos), who founded the brand Peter Sposito Studio, as the winner of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Talent award FW24.

Peter Sposito Studio wins Mercedes-Benz Fashion Talent FW24

Peter Sposito Studio’s FW24 collection was described by the jury as one that is a testament to ‘impeccable tailoring” and as a collection that is made up of "four proposals in one". By winning the contest, designer Peter Sposito has been given the opportunity to present his label’s next fashion collection in Mexico, during the next edition of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Mexico.

During the February 2021 edition of MBFWMadrid and after several years of consecutive editions of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion, insurance company Allianz announced a second ‘Ego’ contest for emerging fashion brands from Spain, entitled Allianz Ego Confidence in Fashion.

In December, 15 emerging Spanish fashion brands were selected to compete in the sixth edition of the contest, and were invited to showcase their fall/winter designs in the Allianz Ego showroom at MBFWMadrid FW24. As part of the contest, the 15 creatives also had to present their collections to a professional jury by laying out their business concept and vision for their fashion brands.

On Sunday, based on these 15 brand presentations, the February 2024 jury selected Spanish-Peruvian fashion label Mal Studio Custom Project, founded by Peruvian designer Michele Lima in the Basque country, as the winner.

Allianz Ego Confidence in Fashion award FW24, co-founded by UDIT

Michele Lima and her winning Bilbao-based fashion label received 6000 euros in prize money to invest in a new fashion collection. For the creation of this collection and its business aspect, she will receive guidance from the fashion educators at UDIT in addition to being able to present her collection on the Allianz Ego runway during the next edition of MBFWMadrid, set to take place in September 2024.

Mal Studio’s FW24 collection and its overall brand identity was praised by the competition’s professional jury for its “storytelling powers” and for the way the artist herself is able to assert her “involvement in the designs".

They specifically mentioned how Lima is able to “rescue vintage fabrics and dead material from other fashion companies’, as well as [reusing] ‘pieces from her past projects to design [her new creations].”

The members of the FW24 jury also underlined the emerging brand’s" commitment to craftsmanship and the perfect balance it creates between the strength of its message and the lightness in the resolution of patterns and shapes of its garments".

Two different fashion competitions, two different juries

This season, the jury of MBFWMadrid’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Talent competition, which comprises fashion professionals who have each completed their own trajectories within the industry, included Maite Casademunt, director and president at fashion brand Lola Casademunt, the stylists José Juan Rodríguez and Francisco Casado, Isabel Basaldúa, creative director of the Madrid design and technology school La Tecnocreativa, and Raquel Peláez, deputy director of the Spanish newspaper El País’ S Moda magazine.

The judging panel of the FW24 edition of the Allianz Ego Confidence in Fashion Award consisted of Spanish designer Ana Locking, professor at the Polytechnic University of Madrid-CSDMM, Ana Rodríguez, director of MBFW Madrid, Andrés Aberasturi, curator of the Allianz Ego circuit, and Maruca García Paredes, director of the fashion department at UDIT.