The Faculty of Textile and Clothing Technology at the Hochschule Niederrhein (HSNR) will be represented by seven graduates at Neo.Fashion (July 11 & 12) as part of Berlin Fashion Week. The "Best Graduate Show" annually gives the best graduates of German universities in the field of design the opportunity to present themselves to the professional world during Fashion Week in Berlin.

The HSNR graduates show innovative, diverse and sustainable collections. What makes them special is that their apprenticeship in creative and technical fields not only enables them to develop aesthetically beautiful clothing and textiles.

Thanks to their apprenticeship in engineering subjects and the use of the 32 laboratories at the university, they are able to design their collections along the entire textile chain, from fiber to finished product. This includes surface and shape design on state-of-the-art knitting machines as well as the creation of printed and lasered surfaces and manufacturing with the latest ultrasonic technology.

The range of themes on display vividly illustrates that fashion - away from fast fashion - can be ambitious, bold, emotional and imaginative, picking up on and reflecting exciting social issues:

With PLAY PAUSE! Jana Lewin developed a mono-material knitwear collection as an imaginative counter-design to life and mood in times of crisis. A large part of the design process involved developing the surfaces and structures on knitting machines in the laboratories of the Faculty of Textile and Clothing Technology. With the results, she was selected as HSNR's Best Graduate 2023 and will have the additional privilege of showing her collection in a special degree show. A top-class jury awards particularly outstanding work in the categories Best Design, Best Sustainability Concept, Best Craftsmanship and/or Best Innovation.

Sonja Kreiterling presents her collection "There's blood". The collection has the clear goal of drawing attention to the stigmatizations of menstruation, breaking barriers and making a powerful statement about Female Empowerment.

With her CODE BLUE collection, Pauline Geissler makes a statement against the threat to marine species and their habitats from pollution. The collection is recyclable and designed according to the principle of low waste.

Max Glaubrecht's "mimicry" collection is based on an awareness of the wear and tear of materials and translates this aesthetic into a design concept for a gender-neutral and ageless streetwear collection. Newness and aspects of wear/use are combined and translated and integrated into textile design by incorporating different textile technologies, such as printing and pleating.

For her collection "Perception of Illusion," Jenny Evgenia Johnson explored illusionist illusions in fashion and the analysis of the trompe l'oeil effect. The design concept combines two contrasting elements - metal and air.

Isabell Fusek's collection INSIDEOUT is deliberately experimental in design to represent the effect of individual emotions such as disgust, surprise or sadness and translate them in textile. The design is not intended to follow the usual standards of "ready to wear" fashion, but instead explores the visualization of feelings outside of the usual conventions.

The collection "Dressed in Shadows" by Anna Droemont is inspired by shadows and their characteristics such as lightness, volatility and changeability. The product design is variable and can be rearranged as desired and theoretically expanded indefinitely.

All contributions can be found at www.neofashion.de.