Design Switzerland is initiated by Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council.
News

MDK – Miranda Kaloudis & Rafael Kouto at the Design Days

MDK – Miranda Kaloudis

Website

Rafael Kouto

Website

More informations on the Design Days

Website

The 11th edition of the Design Days will take place from 26 to 29 September 2019 in Geneva, with a strong focus on Swiss creativity, young design, fashion and digital design.

This year, Pro Helvetia supports seven swiss designers, selected among the participants to an open call, who will present their work during the event. Among them, fashion labels MDK – Miranda Kaloudis & Rafael Kouto, both based in Zurich.

MDK – Miranda Kaloudis creates all season apparel & accessory collections for urban nomads. The designer’s creations are deconstructed and put together in a new way, often merged into hybrids, with the intention to raise the wearing comfort and thus upgrading the body. Equally important to the future orientated design, is the selection of high quality materials. Technical and waterproof fabrics and high quality leathers and cottons.

Rafael Kouto has a unique sustainable approach to fashion design and products. The main core is the customization and upcycling of an individual curated selection of old textiles and garments from Texaid for the realization of the couture and commercial collections, 100 % remade in Switzerland. The cultural background and business model is based on Kouto‘s own cultural origins mixed with the practice of upcycling, which is very common in Africa. It represents an alternative to the current production in fashion with the aim is to encourage upcycling. Rafael Kouto was recently awarded with the Diesel & the Lotto Sports Awards at the last ITS – International Talent Support.

Upcoming maintenance work

The application portal myprohelvetia will be updated from 1.1.-7.1.2024. Due to these changes, open applications must be finalized and submitted via the current online portal (myprohelvetia.ch) by the latest 23:59 on 31 December 2023. Until this date, the deadlines and criteria outlined in the current guidelines and calls for applications apply. New applications can be created and submitted in the application portal as of 8 January 2024.