Belt that eases menstrual pain wins 2025 Rimowa Design Prize

A belt that treats menstrual discomfort with heat and electrical stimulation has been named the overall winner of the 2025 Rimowa Design Prize.

Marc Hackländer and Elisabeth Lorenz, who are students at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd university in Germany, were presented with the trophy and a €20,000 prize at a ceremony at the Gropius Bau art museum in Berlin.

Marc Hackländer and Elisabeth Lorenz won the 2025 Rimowa Design Prize

Named Hottie, the belt warms the wearer's lower abdomen and sends mild electrical impulses that soothe menstrual pain by encouraging the release of endorphins.

Lorenz and Hackländer developed the design under the mentorship of Nic Galway, senior vice president of creative direction product design at Adidas.

Rimowa also granted a Special Mention award to Bauhaus-Universität Weimar students Niels Cremer and Tom Kemter, who were given a €10,000 prize for their design of a freestanding crutch called Standalone.

The project reimagines the forearm crutch with a new aesthetic treatment, employing a mechanism that releases legs at its base so that it can stand upright, which frees the user's arms up for other activities.

Entries to the third edition of the Rimowa Design Prize responded to the theme of mobility.

Twenty-one semifinalists from 39 universities around Germany were selected to undergo a two-month mentoring period with design experts from the competition's jury.

Seven finalists were then selected to advance to a further three months of mentoring and practical development, and exhibited the resulting designs at the award ceremony in Berlin on 13 May.

Aside from the overall winners and Special Mention prizewinners, each finalist project was awarded a €5,000 prize.

The Rimowa Design Prize is intended to champion innovative design projects that tackle significant global issues and lead to meaningful change.

The other finalists were Jonas Krämer, Marius Kintzel and Julian Solmsdorff, Nick Geipel, Sophie Ludwig and Jan Stackfleth.

The Rimowa Design Prize jury included Rimowa CEO Hugues Bonnet-Masimbert as an honorary member, as well as a group of architecture and design experts who also acted as mentors to the seven finalists.

The mentors included Niklas Bildstein Zaar, co-founder and creative director at Sub; Nic Galway, senior vice president of creative direction and product design at Adidas; Pierre Jorge Gonzalez and Judith Haase, founders and managing directors at Gonzalez Haase; Katharina Janku, CEO at USM Germany; Moritz Krueger, founder and creative director at Mykita; Dr Mahret Ifeoma Kupka, curator at Frankfurt's Museum Angewandte Kunst; and Ute Meta Bauer, professor at the School Of Art, Design and Media and principal research fellow of Contemporary Art Singapore at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Find out more about the Rimowa Design Prize here.

Partnership content

This article was written by Dezeen for Rimowa as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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