At Stockholm City Hall, the site of the annual Nobel Prize banquet, 10 fashion startups received their due on Wednesday: 200,000 euros ($224,564) apiece, a bevy of plaudits and a place in the yearlong Global Change Award Changemaker Program, an accelerator run by the H&M Foundation in collaboration with Accenture and KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

The Global Change Award, now in its 11th year, has been referred to as the Nobel Prize of fashion. This year’s early-stage innovations range from AI-powered smartglasses that detect factory-floor defects in real time to spider-silk-inspired fibers produced by microorganisms and biodegradable leather alternatives made from seaweed. They promise, if not the “greatest benefit on humankind” that the original celebrates, then certainly some of the biggest gains for fashionkind.

Stockholm City Hall, as the H&M Foundation likes to quip, is “no stranger to big ideas.” Among them is an expanded definition of innovation itself.

Innovation will always be an important pillar of the award, said Christiane Dolva, the philanthropic organization’s head of innovation, research and demonstration. What she appreciates, however, is how broadly the award now defines the concept: “a new way of doing things that drives impact.” That means looking beyond the novel materials or new machinery that previous iterations of the prize homed in on without fully considering how they fit into the industry’s wider transformation.

-based fashion-tech platform that uses AI and behavioral psychology to turn digital product passports into tools that change consumer behavior.

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