At the 2015 edition of FashionWeek Amsterdam, Lisa Konno presented her debut collection ‘For the Workers’: an ‘anti-sweatshop statement’, to raise awareness of the conditions in the fast fashion industry. A year later she travelled to Rwanda with the clothing brand Afriek to create a women’s clothing collection with the help of local garment-makers. The inspiration for her latest collection and the star of the show is her Japanese father, Nobuaki Konno, who emigrated to the Netherlands in 1977. This project is her artistic response to, and ironic comment on, the integration debate: a visual celebration of cultural misunderstandings and tourist clichés, in which father Nobu plays the main role as muse and source of inspiration.

Lisa Konno seeks ways to hold a mirror up to the clothing industry. She does this by innovating the design, material, production and sale of clothing. She aims to walk a different path in the fashion world and works on projects that challenge the current system. Her work revolves around sustainability and recyclable materials, but the jury is critical of the inconsistency of her work so far. The jury found her latest collection – focusing on interculturality and ethnocentrism – persuasive. In the Nobu collection, Konno succeeds in blending two cultures without falling into clichés.