Real Leather. Stay Different. 2025 International Competition Category Winners Announced!
After a judging process made gruelling by the amazingly high standard of entries, the results are now in. Congratulations to our winners!
Click here to read the winner announcement.
Click here to see the shortlist.
Find out a bit more about our four category winners and their designs below.
Shields explores the push–pull between the ego’s urge to protect, control, and impress and the equally powerful currents of vulnerability, tenderness, and longing—in pursuit of inner harmony. Armor-evoking constructions and a black-and-white palette mirror these opposing forces.
Choosing leather for its strength and adaptability, Islam treats it as both material and metaphor—a protective skin. Silhouettes range from structured, tailored forms to looser, more fluid pieces with supportive elements, joined using a functional zigzag stitch. The result projects confidence, even in moments of inner doubt.
Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem
SubTraction. reimagines footwear as a modular system – personal, purposeful, and circular. Bold in its rejection of convention, the project channels Dieter Rams’ principles into a language of simplicity and endurance.
Laser-cut cowhide becomes both material and metaphor: durable yet adaptable, it speaks to longevity and renewal. Components assemble without glue or stitching, allowing parts to be replaced, interchanged, or biodegraded independently. Function meets imagination – uppers shifting with climate, palettes evolving with taste, soles adapting to terrain.
De Montfort University
“Ombrage” is a unisex collection of leather goods, footwear and jewellery inspired by the primal forces of nature – water, air, earth and fire.
Exploring instinct, duality and the shadows within, it draws on material experimentation with wood and leather and a handwoven technique to create raw, ancestral forms. The collection embraces contrast, capturing the tension between light and dark to reflect the journey towards self-awareness.
Accademia Costume & Moda, Italy
HORN-TO-HOPE unites the strength of the rhino with the resilience of the orchid to symbolize endurance through adversity. Rhinos, threatened by poaching, and orchids, thriving in harsh conditions, become a single emblem of perseverance and care.
The piece is a reminder of the beauty within struggle – and of our responsibility to protect what’s at risk. We may be the cause of their suffering, but we can also be the reason they survive.
Hoa Sen university, Vietnam
Josslyn Shi from California College of Art has been crowned Overall Winner of the Real Leather. Stay Different. International Student Design Competition at a glittering final event held at the U.S. Embassy in London.
London Fashion Week saw a range of quirky yet stunning looks from both regular and up-and-coming designers from around the world. Check out our faves!
The inaugural Real Leather. Stay Different. Vietnam awards ceremony wrapped on July 9 at the stunning Mai House Saigon hotel. And it was a night to remember. More than an awards show it was the revelation of the next generation of designers, propelling them
The UK’s largest maker of luxury leather goods has joined Vestiaire Collective’s ‘Brand Approved’ programme.
Let’s talk about tote bags. The undisputed staple of most working women’s wardrobes, the tried-and-tested silhouette has been replaced with mini bags and crossbodies on the runways in recent years; but the ‘fashion tote’ is officially back.
