SANGUE NOVO Calls for Portugal’s Next Fashion Voices
SANGUE NOVO is calling out all new voices in Portuguese fashion, opening applications for its next edition with a manifesto built around experimentation, process and taking up space.
The platform, created by Associação ModaLisboa and co-organised with the Municipality of Lisboa, has spent more than three decades identifying and supporting new designers as they move from education into professional practice.
“We ignite SANGUE NOVO, demanding new ways of creating, communicating, opening possibilities and taking up space,” the manifesto begins. It calls for a fashion that listens to communities and territories, breathes in collective memory and responds to the transformations shaping the present.
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The manifesto rejects “compulsive speed, empty aesthetics, comfortable repetition, imitation, trends and algorithms,” turning instead toward process, experimentation, imperfect techniques and strange materials. It closes with a clear statement: “We are SANGUE NOVO, a collective project made up of individual voices capable of imagining what does not yet exist.”
The competition is open to final-year students enrolled in higher education and vocational Fashion Design programmes, along with young designers who completed their studies within the last five years and are currently developing their projects in Portugal.
This edition also introduces the ModaLisboa x IED – Istituto Europeo di Design Award, offering access to summer courses in Fashion Trend Forecasting and Styling and Fashion Brand Management at IED Firenze, each supported by a €2,000 grant.
The ModaLisboa x Burel Factory Award returns with a one-month creative residency, technical mentoring, a €1,000 grant and the opportunity to present a collection under the winner’s own name on the Lisboa Fashion Week WORKSTATION platform. Winners also receive showroom representation and press office services through Showpress.
Participants will have access to materials from Calvelex/Fabrics4Fashion, RDD Textiles and Riopele, while the jury includes Miguel Flor as president, alongside Joana Jorge, Adriano Batista, Lidija Kolovrat, Federico Poletti and Mafalda Fialho.
Applications are open until July 19, with selected projects set to be presented during the 67th Lisboa Fashion Week in October 2026.
Sources: ModaLisboa’s official open call provided application, award, jury and deadline details; the official SANGUE NOVO competition page provided eligibility and award information, and FY Magazine!’s report provided the manifesto excerpts and launch framing.
