The top-notch design forum that offers insights into the outlook of the design discipline in China, the trendsetting fashion show, the creative market highly sought-after by youngsters, the art exhibition of cultural collision and blend, and the motivating development initiative for the Party building union of the design discipline in the Yangtze River Delta...On April 22, at the Yan'an Road Campus of Donghua University, notable figures of design and fashion, including professors, senior scholars, heavyweight industry leaders, renowned designers, and entrepreneurs from both home and abroad, gathered together for a 30th anniversary party, a “brainstorming” session and also a “visual feast”.
(Scene of the celebration party)
Thirty years ago, the College of Fashion and Design at Donghua University (then named the Clothing Department of China Textile University) was established to meet the aspiration among the people for a quality life and the development of the industry economy. Starting with the major of Textile Design in 1982, followed by Fashion Design & Engineering and Arts and Crafts in succession, the Institute of Fashion was founded in 1993, becoming the earliest secondary college of fashion among all colleges and universities in China. In 2015, it was officially named as the College of Fashion and Design (CFD), Donghua University. Over the past thirty years, CFD, carrying on its historical mission and social responsibility, has nurtured a large number of outstanding talents for the clothing and fashion industry and creative design sector of China.
How to establish a new model for design and fashion in China and the East? What opportunities and challenges does the fashion industry face? What direction will the design discipline take in China? And in what way will artificial intelligence affect the development of design? At the series of activities specially curated for the 30th anniversary celebration of CFD, Zhao Feng, professor from Donghua University and honorary director of the China Silk Museum, Zhan Heping, former deputy dean and professor from Nanjing University of the Arts, Huang Xinyuan, Party Secretary and professor at the School of Animation and Digital Arts at the Communication University of China, and Professor Qian Qi’er from the China Academy of Art, were invited as guest speakers to share their thoughts and insights on the theme “Journey of Fashion, and Missions of Design”. The “discipline development with characteristics” became a “keyword” on which the experts unanimously agreed during the event.
(Scene of the forum)
At the photo exhibition showcasing the development of CFD, the art of light and shadow were employed to retrace the journey of the CFD's growth from its early days in clothing design until today. Many alumni stopped at an old, slightly yellowed photo, which was a group picture of Professor Zhang Weiyuan from the Institute of Fashion and the astronauts Jing Haipeng, Zhai Zhigang, and Liu Boming from the “Shenzhou VII” manned space flight mission. This photo, which bears the imprint of time, also records the inheritance and innovation spirit of this team. With the ongoing construction of the Chinese space station, astronauts regularly going on missions to space is no longer a novelty. However, as early as the beginning of 1990s, Donghua University began to consider the development of “space suit” for astronauts. From the “perspiring” warm-body phantom system developed by Professor Zhang Weiyuan and his team from the Institute of Fashion to a full range of China's exclusive astronaut space suits designed and developed by a research and development team led by Professor Li Jun, each achievement was focused on the discipline's distinctive features and made possible in a cross-disciplinary system of “fashion design + clothing technology”.
(College history themed photo exhibition)
(Professor Zhang Weiyuan and the astronauts Jing Haipeng, Zhai Zhigang, and Liu Boming)
Currently, being “Thirty and Remarkable”, CFD undertakes the mission of building the research direction “Fashion Technology and Fashion Design” under the world-class discipline “Modern Textile Science and Engineering”. The college is authorized to grant doctoral degree in the first-class discipline “Design” and the second-class discipline “Fashion Design and Engineering”. Boasting 10 national top undergraduate programs (directions) related to fashion design, including fashion design, digital media design, visual communication design, product design, environmental design, etc. , CFD is currently one of the colleges and universities in Shanghai with the most complete design discipline system. Selected for the Shanghai High-level Discipline Construction Plan, the “Design” program has become one of the leading disciplines in China, giving birth to a fashion discipline ecosystem where multiple disciplines coexist and intertwine with each other to create, inherit, and spread beauty.
Over 70 artworks created by teachers, students, and alumni were displayed in the “Artwork Exhibition” specially organized for them at the college, to showcase the creative strength and design artistry of the faculty and alumni as a “showroom” for the college's achievements in cultivating talents.
(Scene of the artwork exhibition)
(Scene of the creative market)
Over the past 30 years, CFD has been striving to be a cradle for designers, and has nurtured nearly 15,000 professionals in design, clothing, art and other related fields. The college has established a Donghua emerging designer growth mechanism to cultivate emerging fashion designers through the three-level progressive exhibition platforms of “Donghua Fashion Week, Shanghai Fashion Week, and London Fashion Week”. A group of young alumni are known as “the rising new generation of Chinese design”. While the previous graduates of CFD scoop awards in professional fields at home and abroad, the new generation of Chinese designers from here are now active in various industries in Shanghai and even the whole country.
(Students’ design works)
(Train students' practical skills for the entire fashion industry cycle)
Through cross-border collaboration, CFD explores and practices a talent training model oriented to the full cycle and process of the fashion industry chain. While promoting the transformation and upgrading of traditional engineering majors and driving the overall uplift of art and design majors, CFD has built a symbiotic development system for art and engineering majors, to cultivate top comprehensive innovative design talents with domestic and global influence.
The release of innovative design works from Donghua, the postgraduate innovative clothing design competition, the exhibition of the works of the Industry-University-Research Base for Pudong Homemade Textile (the intangible cultural heritage)...The 30th anniversary of CFD coincides with the 20th Donghua Fashion Week, with a wide range of fashionable design events such as fashion shows, exhibitions, and creative markets held concurrently, and the Donghua Fashion Week has become a “fashion business card” of Donghua and even Shanghai. We have hosted the “Shanghai International Fashion Culture Festival International Fashion Forum” for over 20 years, displayed and promoted Chinese fashion designs through 1,235 forums and shows, released “Shanghai fashion” trends for 13 consecutive times, and held 125 cross-border fashion and creative salons and forums... What behind these figures is the glorious past and profound heritage of “Greater Donghua Fashion Week”, which will help to enhance the status of fashion education in the fashion industry, further bring into play cultural value through design, and enhance Shanghai and China's voice in the fashion industry.
(Poster of Greater Donghua Fashion Week)
(Scene of the celebration party)
Over the past 30 years, CFD, always rooted in the profound legacy of Chinese civilization, has been committed to integrating the development of disciplines into the national or local development needs, and giving full play to the disciplinary characteristics and advantages in the fields of fashion and technology, to help make possible a better life for the people. We’ve developed and designed the space suit that combines the merits of technology and fashion, to create a new image of Chinese astronauts; the Expo uniform “little white cabbage” shows the demeanor of youth and records the rapid development of Pudong New Area; we’ve incorporated fashion elements into intangible cultural heritage projects to support the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage; we’ve invested efforts into Shanghai’s utility pole renovation and presided over the compilation of China's first “urban furniture” national standard, to drive the construction of the city for the people; based on 15 years of systematic research, we’ve completed the historical masterpiece - Textiles from Dunhuang in the Dunhuang Academy, which is an important achievement in research related to the “Belt and Road” initiative; we’ve been honored by the title of “Fashion Institutions of the Year” from “2021 China Fashion Awards” for outstanding strength and contribution in the field of fashion design; we’ve fully participated in the first World Design Cities Conference in 2022 (WDCC 2022) and played a vital role during this event...
(Standard suit developed by the design team of space suit at Donghua University)
(The first World Design Cities Conference in 2022)
(Textiles from Dunhuang in the Dunhuang Academy)
(Shanghai's streetscape after utility pole renovation)
(Class for intangible cultural heritage inheritors)
(Shanghai-style fashion school uniforms for primary and secondary schools design by research team from CFD)
As we reflect on the past in light of the present, the 30th anniversary of CFD at Donghua University is a momentous occasion, marking a significant milestone in its development, but more importantly, the beginning of a new chapter in its ongoing journey towards progress and growth. As a nationally recognized institution directly under the Ministry of Education, and a "211 Project" and "Double First-Class" university, Donghua has earned a distinguished reputation in the fields of textiles, materials, and design. Moving forward, Donghua will build on this reputation by further strengthening its design discipline, working in collaboration with other universities in Shanghai in building high-level disciplines, and initiating design concepts and services into national and local industrial development, spatial environments, public services, daily life, urban branding, and beyond, to contribute "Donghua Power" and "Donghua Wisdom" towards the city's development as a city of design and fashion, and create the hub for design and fashion for Shanghai as well as China and even the whole world.
