BA (Hons) Fashion Sportswear Student Wins Global Sportswear Design Award

BA (Hons) Fashion Sportswear student Lucas Miller was named as one of the winners in this year’s Global Sportswear Design Award (GSDA), one of the world's leading international sportswear design competitions, for Skin², a project developed in collaboration with Central Saint Martins graduate Rain Muller.

Delivered in partnership with London College of Fashion, Tsinghua University and ANTA, the award celebrates sportswear concepts that push the boundaries of fashion, technology and sustainability.

This year's brief challenged entrants to innovate across three key areas: Digital Intelligent Future, exploring the use of technologies such as AI and data-driven design; Environmental Protection, focused on sustainable materials and responsible production; and Trend Fashion, encouraging designers to combine contemporary fashion with sportswear.

Lucas and Rain's winning project, Skin², responded to all three themes through a bio-mapped compression wear system that combines wearable technology, sustainable materials and fashion-led design.

We spoke to them about the inspiration behind the project, the experience of winning, and their advice for future students.

Can you tell us about your winning design and the inspiration behind it?

Joint response: Our project is called Skin², a bio-mapped compression wear system you can wear training and then to the club after. It's designed to perform at a high level while also looking good, and is aimed at young active creatives at the intersection of sport, fashion and nightlife.

The garments use hexagonal perforations inspired by the hexagonal lattice structure of graphene. Different densities and sizes are mapped to different areas of the body using sweat and stretch data, helping to balance moisture dissipation, flexibility and support.

The garments are also NFC-enabled, creating a link between the wearer's digital identity and the clothing they wear. This could be used for everything from workout assistance and event ticketing to contact sharing, digital authentication and repair information.

For the fabric, we proposed a blend of ECONYL regenerated nylon and graphene stretch fibre, both of which are chemically recyclable and support the wider move towards more sustainable sportswear production.

What challenge or opportunity in sportswear were you trying to address through your design?

Joint response: We wanted to blend couture with sportswear, creating an engineered and high-fashion sportswear line that uses technology in a realistic, user-centred way.

A major challenge in activewear is that support and moisture management often require opposite design approaches. Compression requires dense structures, while cooling and ventilation require more open constructions. Our proposal uses a parametrically modelled system that allows perforation size, density and placement to be adjusted for different sports and different users.

We see this as a flexible platform that could be adapted across a range of activities. For example, a version developed for tennis might use asymmetric perforation patterns to reflect movement patterns on court, while a cycling version could prioritise thermal regulation in specific parts of the body.

How has your time on the course helped you develop the skills, confidence or thinking behind this project?

Lucas: My time on the course has helped me think much more methodically. Sportswear is partly about aesthetics, but there's another layer to it. The course teaches you to define a clear user, understand their experience before, during and after sport, and then solve a genuine problem through research, testing and feedback.

With Skin², we bench-tested fabrics and ran a pilot with peers to inform the digital integration aspects of the design. It's not about designing clothes for the runway. It's about building solutions that work for real people.

The course has also given me access to equipment, facilities and technical expertise that I would never have had access to otherwise. I've developed interests in materials, knitting, electronics and wearable technology, and discovered just how many different directions sportswear can take you in.

Working collaboratively across UAL has been hugely important too. Rain recently graduated from Central Saint Martins, and together we bring different strengths and perspectives to the project. That's one of the great things about studying at UAL. There are so many opportunities to work with people from different disciplines and learn from completely different ways of thinking.