On October 20, the final round of the China-Italy Youth Future Fashion Design Competition was successfully held in the Mong Man Wai Concert Hall of Tsinghua University. The competition was conducted online and offline, with nine judges from home and abroad evaluating 30 entries of the final.
This competition also encourages the fusion of arts and technology, takes beauty as the medium, builds up an international platform for fashion innovation, and explores the cutting-edge trends for leading future fashion. The competition integrates resources in fashion design, innovative education, academic research, and industrial incubation, deepens the fusion of design innovation, production, and education, and discovers and cultivates cutting-edge design talent with creativity and vitality. It also explores the future of global fashion design, fashion technology, and fashion lifestyle, promotes the organic synergy between the chains of education and talent cultivation and the chains of industry and innovation, and facilitates the transformation of innovative achievements of design into strengths, in a bid to accelerate the upgrading of industries in the two countries, satisfy people’s aspiration for better life, and consolidate the sustainable development of global design.
Among those who delivered a speech for the final round of the competition were Yang Bin (Vice President and Provost of Tsinghua University), Giuliano Noci (Vice-Rector for China of Politecnico di Milano), Mario Izzi (Cultural Attaché of the Italian Embassy to China) and Ding Gui (member of the Standing Committee and Head of the Organization Department of the CPC Keqiao Committee of Shaoxing) successively. They also expressed high expectations for the competition and the competitors.
Yang Bin said that hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, education globalization has undergone profound changes. The international exchanges and cooperation featuring all-round way, multi-level and cross-field have become an inevitable trend of the era. Chinese-foreign cooperation has also become an important way to nurture international talents and enhance the international competitiveness of higher education. He said that Tsinghua University was willing to work with Politecnico di Milano and other Italian partners to create a new way of international exchanges and cooperation and inject new vitality into the high-quality development of the China-Italy comprehensive strategic partnership.
Giuliano Noci said that entries of the finalists were of high quality, and the evaluation process would be fair and objective. This competition would be an incentive for young designers and would encourage them to be future leaders of innovative and responsible design. Meanwhile, this competition would be another milestone in the long-term and strong cooperation between Politecnico di Milano and Tsinghua University.
Mario Izzi said that Italian embassies and cultural institutions all over the world attached great importance to the design discipline, and that he was honored to participate in such a high-level competition on behalf of the Italian embassy. The competition reflected the connection between the two ancient cultures. Both Italian and Chinese cultures attached great importance to aesthetics and its functions. In the context of growing international exchanges in the future, important universities such as Tsinghua University and Politecnico di Milano would play a greater role.
Ding Gui remarked that Keqiao, Shaoxing was a thriving city of strength, a charming city with splendid culture, and an innovative city of vitality. The “China-Italy Youth Future Fashion Design Competition”, the cooperation project between Keqiao and the China-Italy Design Innovation Hub of Tsinghua University, has yielded fruitful results. The winners would be directly included in Keqiao’s “Jingwei Plan” and receive governmental support of no more than one million yuan if they start up a business or initiate innovation projects in Keqiao. Ding said that he hoped that in the future, an international program of talent exchange in fashion innovation would be carried out to promote the transformation and upgrading of the industrial clusters of textiles in Keqiao in a faster and better manner.
Following their remarks, thirty competitors demonstrated the overall effect and design ideas of their entries to the judges through speeches, videos, model shows, physical display, etc., and answered questions of the judges on site. The judges raised questions about whether the works could really serve people and how the functions of the works would be realized. Their in-depth questions to the competitors reflected their belief that designs should be people-oriented.
After the competition, the Organizing Committee held a closed-door meeting for the judges. The notaries who witnessed the whole process of the final delivered the notary public, and Professor Lu Xiaobo, the chair of the jury, made a summary speech.
The award ceremony will be held in Keqiao on October 26.
From China-Italy Design Innovation Hub, Office of International Affairs
Editor: Li Han
