says Pavel Berky, TOP STYL DESIGNER 2012 about his winning collection

This afternoon the jury decided about the winner of the TOP STYL DESIGNER 2012 young fashion designer competition. The jury was voting the best of seven finalists from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Philippines. The victory went to young Slovak designer Pavel Berky, student of fashion design at the School of Applied Arts in Prague, with his collection titled XY. The winner received a cheque from the competition producers, granting 70,000 CZK to prepare his next collection. The chairman of the jury Josef Ťapťuch cited the basic criteria of the competition during the final show, which was contemporary character, integrated and clear idea of the artists, as well as perfect craftsmanship. “The collections were rather gloomy this year but all of them were good. The simplest one was the best,” characterised the chairman of the jury the finalists’ collections. Pavel Berky was visibly happy when receiving the award. He thanked the jury and the entire production team and had hard time searching more and more visit cards when giving his first interviews to journalists.

Looks like you will need more visit cards now?
Yeah, definitely it is the right time now (laughs)

Congratulations to your victory.
Thank you.

The remark about the visit cards was just symbolic, to confirm that you made a big leap in your career. How did you actually perceive the victory and the TOP STYL DESIGNER competition?
I must confess that this is the very first competition in which I am taking part and I am really happy that I was successful! Naturally I know the competition, I have been following it every year and I do understand that it is a prestigious and probably the only event of its kind in the Czech Republic, therefore I am really glad that I am the winner now. I applied just to try out my luck and to enjoy taking part. It is a good opportunity to present my work as a beginning designer and to show the world what my ideas are.

What did you do before applying? What inspired you in creating your collection? The competition collection is strictly minimalist – were you not worried about that?
The collection is from the summer term at my university in Prague and it focuses on streetwear. It is nothing abstract, just pure design and it is not the kind of catwalk fashion show collection, which is something that did worry me a bit – I was not sure how the jury would take that. I am truly glad that the jury liked my work. And the inspiration? It was all spontaneous. I tried to interpret features of men’s fashion into women’s clothing and to slightly cover the feminine silhouette, especially in the designs where I used clean and simple forms that do not hang down. The used material was also highly inspirational – I used pure linen.

What are your plans for the future, both in short-term or long-term perspective?
I do hope that I might get a lot of work after today’s victory. I am studying for the bachelor’s degree therefore I expect very busy times. I will be working on creating my bachelor’s collection, hoping that it will come out good. This is my closest goal that I have to achieve. For the future I am planning a stay at some foreign school, first of all to study and also to work if I manage to find something. I would love to go to France, preferably Paris. I have various reasons for that – I have been to France before for one and half years and I fell in love with the landscape and the people. And of course, France is the Mecca of fashion.

I read your CV and I was surprised that you started to co-operate with the industry quite early – in 2003. It was the Veba corporation and you did some African brocade designs for them. Are you tempted to work for commercial enterprises?
I am still working with Veba. It is my first bigger co-operation with commercial industry and I do wish there will be more in the future.

I was just interviewing Mrs. Livia Klausová and I asked her whether she would like to be a fashion designer. She replied that it is a beautiful profession. Do you agree with her?
Definitely. It is a beautiful but most of all very hard profession. Just thinking and preparing your collection takes a lot of time and the final product is presented just for a few minutes. Most of the people in the audience have no idea what has to be done before the show is ready.