Lausanne, November 16, 2022 – At the end of an intense day held in the spectacular IMD in Lausanne-Ouchy, the jury delivered its verdict and Bally CEO Nicolas Girotto was able to present the winner of the 4th edition of the Fashion Innovation Award (FIA). The milestones that brought the twelve finalists to the shores of Lake Geneva can be summarized as follows: call open to startups active in B2B and B2B2C on July 4; closing of entries on September 30; announcement of the finalists on October 24 to arrive on November 16 in Lausanne for presentations in front of the jury. The mission: to generate projects that could help the luxury brand Bally – the FIA’s main promoter – improve the consumer experience by surprising them with special content that improves retention and, through innovative applications, facilitates the virtual design process.
Nicolas Girotto summarizes Bally’s commitment to the FIA as follows: “for 171 years we have had an intense relationship with the worlds of art, creativity, science and design. From these worlds, we have assimilated the exercise of breaking down paradigms, prejudices and preconceptions. This attitude allows us to anticipate or generate trends.” That’s one of the reasons why Bally launched this award with an international competition to collect, discuss and promote new ideas as technology develops. The last four editions would not have been possible without the commitment of the partners present in the Lifestyle Tech Competence Center in Manno, Ticino. Therefore, Bally would like to thank Loomish, which facilitated with its intense and skilled coordination of the approach to the day of the finalists’ presentations. In order to understand the immense work behind the scenes, some numbers should be recalled: In the research phase, about 600 solutions were contacted and 107 applications were accepted for which the utmost attention and interpretative care had to be ensured in order to finally arrive at the 12 finalists to be announced and submitted, in less than 30 days, to the jury also coordinated and commissioned by Loomish. In this regard, Carlo Terreni, President of the Lifestyle Tech Competence Center and Founder of Loomish said, “Our Lifestyle Tech Competence Center team is proud of the quality of this scouting, especially of the high-profile startups from all over the world that we were able to attract to Switzerland with the Fashion Innovation Award. Over the years, we have strengthened our partnership with Bally and it is great to see a pilot project kick-off as the result of this edition. We are excited about what the next steps will be.”
Before an impressive panel of judges that included representatives from Bally‘s top management, as well as leaders from Lifestyle Tech Competence Center members including Accenture, Microsoft, UBS, and venture capital firms such as Antler, New Epoch Capital, and Privilège Ventures SA, PixelPool from the Netherlands finally came out on top. The company developed Dtail, a cloud-based visualization platform that helps brands plan and visualize their collections by providing a cloud-based 3D go-to-market solution (see: https://www.pixelpool.com). Present for the winning project was Gary Plunkett, CCO of Dtail, who presented the winning application on the morning of November 16.
In introducing the winning project, Nicolas Girotto recalls, “While we were very pleased by the innovative and forward thinking 3D solutions we have been presented, Pixel Pool stood out for the comprehensiveness of their project and for their understanding of the fashion industry needs. We are looking forward to implementing a pilot as we have great expectations to improve our process efficiency and believe on the impact of 3D presenting and selling our collections in-store and to Wholesale Partners”. The winning project was awarded an exclusive 6-month period at Bally to develop a prototype. For development, they also receive a Dagorà co-working space in Ticino for an entire year and access to the network of contacts found at LTCC. During the development phase, the designers will have the help of two exceptional mentors. Nicolas Girotto, CEO of Bally, and Carlo Terreni, president of LTCC.
We then turned to the finalists also, with the short-list being reached they can feel like winners, too. They are to be congratulated by the entire jury. As a reminder, they are being offered an exhibition booth during the e-Luxury Summit that brings together important business personalities. In addition, while presenting their project during the FIA they can make useful contacts with the jury representatives, the brands in attendance, LTCC members, and, if desired, they can take advantage of a mentoring period with Bally’s CDO Nathalie Sisouk and Bally’s CFO Team to discuss aspects of commercialization and partnership available in the international market.
c/o Dagorà Lifestyle Innovation Hub
Galleria 1, Via Cantonale
6928 Manno, Switzerland
