Recently, the award ceremony for the 2024 “Real Leather. Stay Different” Global Student Design Competition in the China Mainland division was held in Shanghai. Under the guidance of Professor Zhou Honglei from College of Fashion and Design , postgraduate students Li Yuanyuan’s work titled “AWAKENING IN THE WILDNESS” and Tang Linjie’s work titled “FIRE OF LIFE” won respectively the championship and an excellence award in the fashion category. In the footwear category, undergraduate students Gao Yijia’s “TRACE”, Hai Shihao’s “SURFS” and Deng Yuyang’s “NATURAL WILDNESS”, guided by Associate Professor Tian Yujing, received the third prize and excellence awards respectively .
Sponsored by the Leather and Hide Council of America and supported by the China Leather Industry Association, the design competition has been successfully held six timessince its inception in 2019. As a global event, the competition aims to showcase and promote the fashionability, sustainability, and diversity of leather materials, providing a platform for young designers to display their talents. Over the past six years, the competition has attracted over 2,500 outstanding student designers from nearly 30 top design universities in China, continuously introducing a fresh influx of new talent and creative inspiration into the field of leather fashion design. Students from our university have cumulatively won 16 awards in this competition.
(Design sketch of the 2024 “Real Leather. Stay Different” Global Student Design Competition fashion category champion)
(Li Yuanyuan, the fashion category champion, at the award ceremony)
In recent years, the team led by Professor Zhou Honglei, focusing on cultivating innovative talents with an international perspective in fashion, has continuously explored new models for nurturing top-notch sustainable innovative talents through multidimensional immersion. They have proactively aligned with national development and regional construction needs, achieving a series of accomplishments in professional degree talent cultivation, scientific research, social services, and cultural heritage.