OREANDA-NEWS. June 04, 2014. DHL, the world’s leading logistics provider, and IMG Fashion have announced the winners of this year’s inaugural DHL Exported season. Italy’s Francesca Liberatore, Turkey's Hakan Yildirum, Henry Holland from the UK and the duo Nicholas and Christopher Kunz from the U.S. have won the opportunity to further their international growth plans by showing their collections at the world’s leading fashion week events.

“We are proud by the amount of applications we received and even more so about the collections’ quality and designers’ creativity. Our juries in London, Milan, New York and Tokyo each had tough decisions to make and ultimately found some of the most talented designers out there. We’re confident to export their work with great success”, said Arjan Sissing, Senior Vice President Corporate Brand Marketing, Deutsche Post DHL.

The DHL Exported program was open for application from February 17 to April 9. Afterwards, juries in Milan, London, New York and Tokyo picked three finalists for each show and made a final decision after taking another closer look. DHL Exported is sponsoring a fully produced runway show for two consecutive seasons, along with covering the logistic costs of producing the collection and shipping the final looks either to New York, London, Milan or Tokyo.

150 applications from designers in 36 countries

Jarrad Clark, VP Global Creative Director and panelist in each of the markets, comments: “We had a tough task in choosing a winner for each of the markets; with such tremendous talent wishing to take their businesses abroad. For us it was about finding the right designers whose design aesthetic and businesses are ready to enter a new region. We needed to ensure they all have the proper infrastructure in place so that they are able to use their runway show and DHL’s logistic offering to its full potential. We moved forward designers who made a commitment to their own international growth over the course of the entire year, and not just at the individual shows.”

Overall DHL and IMG Fashion received 150 applications from designers in 36 countries, each looking to break in to the global marketplace and present their collection to a worldwide audience. Designers were asked to choose the market where their businesses objectives foresee growth in. For each show, a committee of regional experts reviewed the applications and chose the designer that showed the most promise to succeed from the program.

The winners come from four different countries: Francesa Liberatore from Italy will present her designs at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York. Hakaan Yildirium from Turkey with his label Hakaan  is booked for London Fashion Week. Nicholas and Christopher Kunz from the United States with their label Nicholas K  are heading to Italy to Milan Fashion Week. And finally, Henry Holland from the United Kingdom with his label House of Holland  will go to Japan to present at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Tokyo.

The DHL Exported shows will take place in September 2014/February 2015 at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York, London Fashion Week and Milan Fashion Week, as well as in October 2014/March 2015 at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo.