The winner is qeenew!
The winner of the 2026 Formex Sustainability Award was qeenew, which won the jury’s heart with its unique garments made from recycled textiles.
The Formex Sustainability Award is Formex’s annual competition, where exhibiting companies can nominate themselves by submitting a product and a description of how they work with sustainability. The jury selects some of the entries, which are all presented in a mini exhibition at Formex. The winner in 2026 was qeenew, which creates garments from recycled textiles and works on a small scale with a focus on craftsmanship, circularity and long-term value in existing materials.
Juryns motivering:
“Winning means a lot to me. It is proof that the small-scale, artisanal work with recycled textiles has a natural place in the present. The attention gives both courage and strength to continue developing qeenew and to continue to highlight the value of the textiles that already exist,” says Lisa Setterberg, founder of qeenew.
qeenew is a Sweden-based fashion company that works with textiles from the Red Cross residual flow from seven stores. These are materials that have been sorted out of sale and would otherwise go to export or incineration. Founder Lisa Setterberg works mainly with home textiles as they often offer larger pieces of fabric and all materials are carefully washed and examined. The parts that are worn, torn or stained are removed. This means that each garment is unique and only exists in one copy.
The garment Lisa showed in the Formex exhibition was a jacket made from a second-hand bedspread. “Since the material was already padded, I initially saw an opportunity to work quickly and efficiently, but in practice it meant more time-consuming work where many existing seams needed to be cut to achieve a well-made result,” says Lisa. The jacket was developed directly in the studio without a finished pattern, where instead the material had to control the shape and expression. “All the fabric in the garment comes from the same bedspread, and I have added elastic at the waist and covered buttons at the front,” Lisa continues.
The garment is both functional and a display piece, and is not part of the regular range. It has generous volumes in the sleeves and an expression that moves between the feminine and the playful. A lot of color is also something that is recurring in qeenew’s collections.
Lisa Setterberg received the winning statuette created this year by artist Susanne Pontus Persson. The work is part of her series SPILL and consisted of various marble spill pieces from both her own and others’ productions and together form a unique work.
The Formex Sustainability Award was established to highlight good examples in the industry and promote sustainable development. This year’s jury consists of chair Maria Soxbo, journalist and co-founder of Klimatklubben, Malin Jensen, interior designer, Maria Lagerman, specialist in circular business models, Emma Olbers, designer and Daniel Svahn, designer and interior architect. The prize is awarded annually in connection with the spring Formex trade fair.
Read more about qeenew here: www.qeenew.com
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