The Fabricant today announces the results of Design Forward 2026, its annual open competition for the next generation of fashion creatives working with AI design tools. After a rigorous evaluation by an eight-member international jury, ten winners have been selected from a global field of 15 finalists.
This year’s competition surfaced a question the jury debated throughout their session: is the value of AI in fashion about creating entirely new ideas, or about renewing and reimagining what already exists? Both approaches produced compelling results. The first-place collection, Reborn Myths by Tiia Jaakkola (Kolding School of Design, Denmark), transformed post-consumer denim waste through the lens of Finnish folklore and contemporary streetwear. The second-place collection, Invisible Architecture by Akriti Awatwani (Instituto Marangoni, Italy), used AI to explore structure, negative space, and the tension between what is present and what is absent in a garment. The third-place collection, Streetwear Preppy by Andre Fonseca Vieira (Faculty of Architecture, University of Lisbon, Portugal), took a familiar aesthetic and recontextualized it with discipline and commercial clarity.
The most significant pattern in this year’s results is geographical. Submissions came from 21 different countries, across 45 design schools. Finalists were from Denmark, Italy, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Canada, Greece, and India. Several of the most original submissions came from designers working entirely outside the traditional fashion capitals of the world. As Adriana Pereira, co-founder of The Fabricant, observed during the jury session: “AI is becoming a big equalizer of creativity and of talent.” A student in Kuala Lumpur, a graduate in Athens, a designer in Brazil each had access to the same creative tools and the same expressive possibilities as anyone working in Paris or Milan. That shift matters.
The jury’s deliberations were shaped by a second question that ran through nearly every discussion: how much should AI be used to explore what is entirely new versus what can be made better, faster, or more precisely? Jury members found themselves on different sides of that line depending on the submission. The strongest collections were those where the designer’s point of view came through clearly, and where the use of AI served that perspective rather than replaced it.
The Design Forward 2026 jury included: Kerry Murphy (The Fabricant), Carsten Meijer (Vice Media), Alex Hogh Nielsen (Bestseller), Nicolas Griffioen (The AI Taskforce), Katrin Ley (Fashion for Good), Gloria Maria (Red-Eye), Brigitte Stepputtis (Vivienne Westwood), and Lennard Minderhoud (Fashion United). All ten winners will receive certificates recognising their achievement.
About The Fabricant
The Fabricant is a digital fashion creation platform that enables designers, brands, and educators to design fashion using AI tools. Founded in Amsterdam, The Fabricant works with leading fashion organisations to accelerate design workflows and explore what fashion can become. app.thefabricant.com
Winners Social Media
Tiia Jaakkola – @tiiamariajaakkola
Akriti Awatwani – @Akriti.awatwani
Andre Fonseca Vieira – @anvi_andre_
