Two UK designers named Redress Design Award semi-finalists

Alexandra Burch and Holly Shih have put the UK into the Redress Design Award semi-finals, a shortlist that rewards more than polish. The real brief here is circularity with teeth: waste textiles, zero-waste cutting, reconstruction, disassembly and design for recyclability, all aimed at a modern, fashion-forward adult rather than a conceptual showpiece.

Redress shortlisted 16 semi-finalists from hundreds of applications submitted across 59 regions, which tells you how competitive the field has become. The award is now in its 16th cycle, and its logic is bluntly practical. Designers are asked to build contemporary collections from waste textiles while proving they understand the systems around a garment, not just the silhouette on a hanger.

That matters because the industry problem Redress keeps returning to is enormous. The organisation says only 0.3% of the global textile industry is circular, while textile waste is projected to rise by 60% between 2015 and 2030. In that context, the semi-finalists are being measured against skills brands actually need: how to source discarded fabric without compromising hand feel, how to engineer garments that can be taken apart, and how to think about material use before the first pattern is cut.

The next stage will decide which eight finalists earn a trip to Hong Kong in early September 2026, where they will show on the runway at CENTRESTAGE during Hong Kong Fashion Fest. The judging panel brings together Orsola de Castro, Dr. Christina Dean, Rod Henderson of TAL Apparel Ltd and Angus Tsui, the creative director of ANGUS TSUI and a Redress alumnus. That mix of activist, founder, manufacturer and designer is revealing in itself: this is not a trophy for aesthetics alone, but for ideas that can survive contact with production.

Redress, founded in 2007 as an Asia-focused environmental NGO and supported by the Cultural and Creative Industries Development Agency of the Hong Kong government, has built the award into a talent pipeline as much as a competition. Semi-finalists join the Redress Alumni Network, now 350 strong and drawn from previous contestants across 40 countries, with alumni later collaborating with retailers and appearing in high-profile wardrobes. The sharper question now is whether the circular habits being rewarded here can migrate beyond competition collections into factories, buying rooms and supplier agreements, where fashion’s waste problem is actually made or solved.