About DAFES AWARDS
We established the international competition program DAFES AWARDS to encourage creative achievements, share experiences and form guidelines for professional development in design, art, fashion, education and business.
DAFES AWARDS is awarded in five profiles, 20 categories and 80 nominations, as well as various partner nominations that we form together with educational and creative institutions.
About the nomination
This nomination accepts projects carried out by young designers and entrepreneurs working on creating or promoting their own brand, startup or initiative in the fashion industry.
Projects of various formats can be submitted to the competition: projects of brands focused on the mass market segment, as well as stores, showrooms, agencies, startups and initiatives in the field of sustainable design, production organization and other current issues in the fashion industry.
Terms of participation
Both concepts and projects that have been implemented or published between November 1, 2023, and October 12, 2025, are accepted for professional nominations.
While confirmation of publication or implementation is not required for a project to participate in the competition, the jury may request verification from the competition organizers in disputed cases.
Requirements to projects
A brand portfolio, a project of a store, a startup, a service, etc. in the field of fashion industry is submitted for the contest.
Optimal composition of the contest project: - Description of the idea / concept, including name, positioning, audience, price range; - Key branding elements; - Visualization of the key image or product of the brand, main elements of the service, startup (in the form of sketches, prototype, 3D-visualization, photo/video shooting); - Project / visualization of visual communication (e.g. lookbook, advertising shoots, images for social networks, etc.).
All projects are submitted to the competition in the format of a longread-format report created on the deziiign.com platform.
Jury
Anzor Kankulov is the Head of Fashion at the School of Design of the National Research University Higher School of Economics. He is a journalist and fashion expert who worked as editor-in-chief of OM, Harper’s Bazaar, Port magazines, editorial director of L’Officiel and Numero magazines.
Ksenia Solovieva — journalist, ex-editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine, host of the Telegram channel? // Masha Fedorova, stylist and fashion editor, ex-head editor of Vogue magazine,
Anastasia Poletaeva — head of content and design at tsum.ru, host of the YouTube channel BEZFILTERS
Anton Gulevsky — fashion journalist, host of That’s Haute channel
Tatiana Maksimova — editor-in-chief of Voice Shopping magazine.
Vasilisa Gamaleya-Gusarova — stylist, creative director. head of agencies Sputnik Supervison (creative development for brands) and Visible (styling services).
Leonid Alexeev — designer, founder and creative director of House of Leo brand&
Ekaterina Pavelko — Fashion editor, stylist, costume designer, curator of the Fashion profile at the School of Design of the National Research University Higher School of Economics.
Registering and uploading a project
The step-by-step way to create an account and create a project on the platform to participate in the contest is described in the instructions.
Stages of the competition
Project submission deadline — October 12, 2025 Voting proccess — October 13 to 19, 2025 Invitation of participants and preparation for the ceremony — October 20 to November 7, 2025
Awarding ceremony
The award ceremony for the winners will take place on November 21, 2025
Contacts