On May 11, the opening ceremony of the Wool Education Center co-established by the Shanghai International College of Fashion and Innovation at Donghua University (SCF) and The Woolmark Company was held at the Yan’an Road campus. Liu Chunhong, Vice President of DHU, Chen Nanliang, Vice President of DHU and the Head of College of Textile, John Roberts, theGeneral Manager of Eastern Hemisphere for The Woolmark Company, and Katrina Harrigan, Vice Consul General of the Australian Consulate General in Shanghai attended the ceremony.
Liu Chunhong expressed the gratitude to The Woolmark Company and related cooperative companies for their strong support. She stated that DHU, as a member under China’s Double First-Class initiative, has actively seized the two commanding heights in national strategic needs and international fashion & innovation. It established the SCF in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh, UK, which has recruited a wide range of teachers and students. SCF adopts internationalized project-based curriculum practice models for teaching of fashion and innovation disciplines. The Wool Education Center serves as a university-level international education and research platform, and works together with designers, retail brands and other industry partners to establish a wool information platform. It is hoped that the Center will provide support for the cultivation of fashion and creative talents in the future.
“Donghua University has a long history and great attainments in the field of textile and fashion design. Naturally, it is the preferred partner of The Woolmark Company in China. The Wool Education Center will become a full-scale cooperation base for the two sides in industry, university, research and application,” said Ma Jie, General Manager China and Executive Vice President of Greater China and New Markets in Asia of The Woolmark Company. According to him, the Center can be used for various seminars, training courses and research group activities. Students and designers can systematically learn about the wool, and the quarterly updated “The Wool Lab – Wool Fashion Trend” enables the designers to get in touch with wool and to feel its incredible and wonderful texture, thus inspiring design inspiration. In the future, the Center will develop in a more specialized, younger, and information-oriented manner to build a platform for seamless convergence between industrial chains.
At the launch, Chen Nanliang, John Roberts, Katrina Harrigan, Ma Jie and Li Binrong, Secretary of SCF Joint Party, and Li Jun, Executive Vice Dean of SCF, jointly unveiled the plaque. Yuan Menghong, Party Secretary of Fashion·Art Design Institute, and Zhao Mingwei, Deputy Director of the International Cooperation Office, together with representatives of relevant cooperative companies and faculty and student representatives, also attended the event.
It is learnt that The Woolmark Company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Australian Wool Innovation as well as a non-profit organization co-owned by 60,000 herdsmen. As an authoritative certification body for woolen textiles, it establishes partnerships with woolen textile and fashion companies from around the world and is committed to providing R&D and marketing services for the global supply of wool.
