With design inspirations ranging from a childhood on the tennis court to a sculptor’s playground and the ancient art of Kintsugi, this year’s Real Leather. Stay Different. (RLSD) International Student Design Competition has uncovered some of the boldest emerging talent in leather design.
At the heart of the competition is a powerful message about sustainability. Real leather is a durable, biodegradable by-product of the meat industry — and in the hands of the next generation of designers, it is being reimagined as a material for a more thoughtful, circular future of fashion. From leather offcuts reborn as sculptural footwear to scraps transformed into playful, intuitive accessories, this year’s winning entries show that the most exciting ideas in fashion are also the most responsible ones.
The winning designers will now go head-to-head for the title of Overall Winner at RLSD’s final event and awards ceremony in Bangkok this October, presenting their work before a star-studded panel of judges drawn from the worlds of fashion, footwear and entertainment.
2026 Category Winners
Apparel — Tal Zohar: The Neo-Heritage Tennis Club
Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art, Israel
Drawing on childhood memories of playing tennis, and on two defining eras of the sport’s style — the 1920s of Suzanne Lenglen and the 1970s of Björn Borg — this collection echoes the clarity and precision of the tennis court in a leather-quilted jacket. Constructed from cow leather and natural cotton textiles, the piece takes its brown, green and white colour palette directly from tennis courts and playing surfaces, with construction lines that recall court markings and the geometry of a tennis ball.
Accessories — Siang-Ying Lu: Playscape
SAIC School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA
Inspired by sculptor Isamu Noguchi’s playgrounds, this leather bag began life as a single circle cut from offcut leather, folded and sewn into parallel and concentric lines without any further cutting. Guided by intuition rather than fixed patternmaking, the designer allowed the leather’s natural elasticity to pull the flat surface into an undulating, three-dimensional silhouette that shifts and responds as it is held. The bag is described by the designer as an act of play between hand, material and body.
Footwear — Roscha Dinler: Fragmented Structure
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany
Taking its cue from Kintsugi, the Japanese repair art in which damage and repair become visible parts of an object rather than flaws to hide, this footwear design is built entirely from leather scraps and offcuts. The form was sculpted directly on a last, allowing the design to emerge through construction and instinct.
People’s Choice — Tran Trong Nghi Nguyen: Champa the Legacy
Ton Duc Thang University, Vietnam
Inspired by the art of Bàu Trúc pottery, Champa is an evening gown that celebrates the natural curves of the body through surface treatments evoking cracked textures, raw tactility and the distinctive tones of fired clay. Motifs drawn from Champa sculpture are reinterpreted through handcrafted leatherwork, creating a dialogue between tradition and modernity.
The four international category winners will be joined in Bangkok by the RLSD Thailand 2026 overall winner, Kittidech Chankraithong, from Srinakharinwirot University, who will compete on behalf of the host nation.
Kittidech’s apparel collection, RODE-MAIL, features a minidress, balloon jacket and mini sailor hat, and draws inspiration from his daily bus commute. The collection fuses contemporary leather craftsmanship with Thai heritage, creatively experimenting with traditional gold-leaf gilding, one of the Ten Thai Traditional Crafts, to pioneer a novel surface innovation on leather.
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The Real Leather. Stay Different. UK Student Design Competition, in partnership with Arts Thread and Leather UK, has announced its esteemed panel of judges for 2023.
