Dubai, UAE, April 2, 2018:   With space tourism and the space race to Mars both hot global news topics, the Middle East’s biggest fashion store launched its own exploratory mission asking - what would inter-cosmic future fashion look like? To help answer this question, Centrepoint asked students from across the UAE and KSA, together with the retailer brand’s own social media fans, to submit designs for how they expected a space fashion collection to look in a not-too-distant decade. 

The winning student designer is Malika Akhmedova, a first-year student from the College of Fashion and Design in Dubai, UAE, with Seif ElDin Rashwan from the American University in Dubai chosen as the first runner-up. Their designs today went on display at Centrepoint’s store in Dubai Festival City, along with the creations from six other finalists. 

The Spacesuit Collection competition, which ran across Centrepoint’s website and social media channels, as well as being promoted directly to universities and colleges, was launched to support the brand’s new e-commerce advertising campaign, which depicts an astronaut with nothing appropriate to wear for an alien space encounter. The competition therefore was designed as a chance for customers to show their support, and design a spacesuit for the astronaut who’s featured in the film.   

The contest, in collaboration with Centrepoint’s creative agency Impact BBDO, Dubai engaged over 300 students from colleges and universities across the UAE and KSA. Amongst the universities participating were Esmod, the French Fashion University in Dubai, Herriot Watt in Dubai and the Institute of Luxury Fashion & Style in Dubai. 

The two winning designs emerged from 35 designs shortlisted by the judges who were comprised of Centrepoint’s Senior Marketing team alongside BBDO Creatives. In addition to their designs being displayed, the winners and finalists also received gifts from Centrepoint. 

Simon Cooper, Head of Centrepoint said, “We always suspected that Centrepoint fans had great talent and potential, and this competition has proved it! We wanted to get young people exploring their creativity and designs skills in a way they might not usually do and we have been truly impressed by the standard of entries that we received. We would like to congratulate Malika and Seif, and express our gratitude to all the finalists and participants for their exceptional and imaginative ideas. The submissions we received were truly extraordinary and it was not an easy feat to pick the winner. We recently launched our new brand positioning Show Yourself, and this campaign is merely the first in what we hope will be a series of opportunities that will allow us to encourage the public to be confident in their own abilities and passions.”

Competition winner Malika Akhmedova concludes “To participate and then win Centrepoint’s competition, a great and unusual way to showcase our creative talents, has been a great experience. Space is an inspirational concept that allows you to dream big so Centrepoint could not have picked a more appropriate theme for us to explore and expand our horizons. I’d like to thank everyone on the Centrepoint team, as well as their creative advertising agency, Impact BBDO, Dubai for their support”