The 2018 IFFTI (International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes) Student Design Competition was held on the Yan’an Road campus of Donghua University (DHU) on April 12. Zhu Min, Party Secretary of DHU and IFFTI Chairman Robyn Healy attended the event.
With the scale and the participation of international students hitting a new high in the history of IFFTI, the competition committee received a total of nearly 300 design works from 25 institutions in 12 countries and regions. After the selection, Kenta Nishimura of Bunka Fashion Graduate University won the first prize presented by Secretary Zhu Min, Li Shuangdonghai of DHU and He Yingcai of Nottingham Trent University won the second prize, and Hoi Shan Law of LASALLE College of the Arts, Jhuang Jia-Ying of Fu Jen Catholic University and Nicholas Betts of London College of Fashion won the third prize.
(Secretary Zhu Min presents the first prize to Kenta Nishimura)
The consistency between the theme of the competition “Fusion” and that of the annual conference “Fashion Future” constitutes one of the highlights of this competition. Fusion in fashion means joining diverse and varying concepts, techniques and materials to achieve the desired look in an innovative way. With the development of human civilization, science and technology provide people with the knowledge and tools to understand, evaluate and explore new possibilities in a diverse world. We are wondering how fashion will be in the future based on the fusion from past, present and future.
“Wukong” wears a deconstructed cassock-red suit. The flexible lines of knitwear make the arc seem active and cute...
The design works of the 47 finalists shone on the stage to feast the audience’s eyes.
(The show)
The work “MARUMARO” by the first prize winner Kenta Nishimura features innovative integration of the traditional clothing’s planarity, squaring and circular arcs. The sense of elegance displayed by the arc-shaped outer profile and the lower hem accurately conveyed the designer’s creative intention to the audience and judges. According to Kenta Nishimura, his work also benefits from the full-forming weaving technology, which he believes will be a major theme in the future of fashion and will lead the knitwear into trend.
（“MARUMARO” by first prize winner Kenta Nishimura）
Is it possible to draw inspiration from the Four Classic Novels of China? The second prize winner Li Shuangdonghai from Donghua University will tell you “Yes.” Her work “Wukong” was inspired by the image of Sun Wukong in the Journey to the West, which is aimed to find out the heroism under the shackles of the secular world and explore the forces of imprisonment and anti-imprisonment between society and people. She boldly deconstructed the suit by combining the suit fabric with DuPont paper, showing a dramatic conflict between the most primitive, rough human dynamics and sophisticated, decent social masks, which is intensified by the red of monk’s robe.
(“Wukong” by second prize winner Li Shuangdonghai)
(Group photo)
DHU has always taken the cultivation of innovative talents in fashion design with an international perspective as the goal. This year it was approved to establish the doctoral degree program (first-level discipline) for design science, the 18th design doctoral program (first-level discipline) in China. Since 2010 when students from Fashion • Art Design Institute first participated in the World of Wearable Art, 26 students have won 29 awards. This competition renders people to see the grace of future fashion designers, who bring us creative breath-taking works with diversified sources of time and space to predict and lead future fashion trends.
