Carolina Raquel and Federico Protto won the New Blood contest

The Portuguese Carolina Raquel won today the Prize for Best National Designer of the contest Sangue Novo, ModaLisboa, dedicated to new talents and emerging values, with the Italian Federico Protto been awarded the Award for Best International Designer.

The names of Carolina Raquel and Federico Protto were announced at the Carlos Lopes Pavilion, after the six finalists of the Sangue Novo competition, by the jury president, Miguel Flor, in the framework of the 52nd edition of ModaLisboa.

Carolina Raquel, 23, won the award with “A Complex Form“, a collection that, as she explained, “reflects the creative process of a sculptor“.

“The first coordinate is based on the initial block and the last one is after the sculpt, the whole sculpture polished, so it looks like it is more naked,” he said.

In the pieces, “all the details, from buttons and resin applications, were made exclusively for the collection“. “The accessories I made in collaboration with a textile designer I met in London,” he said, noting that “all the gloves were made with beads and hair applications the same thing.”

Carolina Raquel currently lives in London, where for the last four and a half years she has studied at the London College of Fashion. During the course, he studied at Simone Rocha and Christopher Kane in London and Alexandra Moura in Lisbon. “I try to have experienced on one side and another and keep in touch with Portugal,” he said.

The prize that won includes a scholarship of five thousand euros and the opportunity to attend a Masters in Fashion Design at Polimoda in Florence, Italy. For the young designer, “the flight to Italy is almost complementary to the whole previous experience“.

The collection she presented today was the first one she created out of school. In the previous edition of ModaLisboa, which was chosen the finalists of Blood New, presented the collection “end of course.”

From that collection did not sell anything, but in this will “try, and it is even possible to wear some of the pieces“.

“I was very fond of selling,” he said, noting that “there are pieces [in the collection] that are almost works of art, but others wearable,” since “many of the coordinates are made in layers.”

Despite being willing to sell his creations, he confesses that he likes “a lot to do those pieces that are just for the parade and are even almost works of art, which can not be almost replicated.”

On the other hand, the winner of the Prize for Best International Designer, Federico Protto, 27, has no pretensions to sell his creations, at least for now.

Of Italian citizenship, born in Uruguay, Federico Protto attended higher education in Austria, having finished his course in 2017, and currently lives in Hungary. “Life takes us everywhere,” he said, noting that being in Lisbon, a city he loves, “is a great opportunity.”

To Blood New, where he presented a collection for the third time, arrived through information released by the university.

“I decided to try, it worked and I’m happy. I feel happy here,” he shared.

Referring that he does not sell his creations since he works “more artistically,” Federico Protto said he created the “Muses 2019” collection to show a different way of working in the fashion system, which is hard and product oriented. and he sees himself “more like an artist too.”

“I do performing arts, I paint a lot and I want to incorporate all these areas into this network and the result is this collection. I want to get away from the conventional and do what is best for my life as a young designer,” he said.

Despite this, he sells some of the printed t-shirts he makes. “Maybe one day [sell the creations], but I want to do more experiments from every field. Maybe one day, five, seven, ten years from now, I might have a good team, a good investor.”

The prize that won today guarantees that it will present in the next edition of ModaLisboa, in October, a new collection, this time on the Workstation platform.

In the scope of Blood New was also delivered the prize The Feeting Room, to the British Archie Dickens. The collection that was presented today will be produced and sold in the stores of Lisbon and Porto of that brand.

The 52nd edition of ModaLisboa, which presents collections for the autumn/winter of next year, continues until Sunday.

Today the collections of Duarte, Carolina Machado, Valentim Quaresma and Ricardo Preto are also presented.