New Generation: Set Design as the Pilot to Pursue Dream

——SHOW TOWN·China Graduate Fashion Week 2017 closed

At the night of May 20, when the 22nd China Fashion Young Talent Award and the series of awards were revealed, theSHOW TOWN•China Graduate Fashion Week 2017 ended successfully.

As an internationally professional service platform for well-known Chinese and foreign fashion colleges to publicize and promote their teaching achievements, for college students to display their design creative talents, boost college students' employment and entrepreneurship, this graduate fashion, China Graduate Fashion Week, after five-year accumulation, promoted the fashion industry to concern and support young designers’ growth and has made efforts to build a firm and powerful platform for the post-90s new designers for their diverse development.

A new high in the scales of participating universities reflects the new fashion education development

During the fashion week, more than 70 professional activities, including fashion shows, forums and theme lecture, personnel recruitment, professional contests and award ceremony, was held. The number of participating colleges and universities and the graduate shows reaches a historical high. This fashion creative feast attracted 3,355 teachers and graduates, including 1,525 vigorous fresh graduates, from 53 well-known fashion and arts institutions to show their designs. Nearly 400 journalists from 151 media at home and abroad gave live report on this event, with 1,550 person-times of models and 25,000 person-times of audience.

The 48 participating Chinese colleges and universities cover a total of 19 provinces and cities in China, like Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Hubei, Zhejiang, Guangdong, covering the main regions of textile and apparel industry cluster in China.Among the 5 overseas colleges and universities, University of Southampton from England and Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti Milano from Milan have been attending the fashion week for three consecutive years. This year also welcomes Curtin University from Australia and Faculty of Art and Design, Durban University of Technology from South Africa. As the overseas university to hold its independent show in the fashion week for the first time, the head of Curtin University said, China Graduate Fashion Week is a professional and high-level communication platform. The university showed its teaching achievement in this platform and hopes to continue to participate in this fashion feast in the future.

It is worth mentioning that some graduate works set the particular direction according to the local apparel industry characteristic,which is a kind of beneficial try to promote the connection of creativity and business. For example,School of Art & Design, China Women's Universityset the sportswear as direction, and Chongqing University of Education set the parent-child outfit as direction, which attracted the attention of other colleges and universities and enterprises.

 In addition, the “the New Coat of Dream” voting campaign launched by China Graduate Fashion Week official WeChat account has realized daily page views of over100,000 +.As the voting is still ongoing, the eventual WeChat TOP5 Popular King will be selected and the result will be formally announced on May 24. The TOP5 colleges and universities will be awarded honorary certificates by the organizing committee of China Graduate Fashion Week.

Zhang Qinghui, Chairman of China Fashion Association, said that China Graduate Fashion Week is not college or university oriented,or China fashion oriented but the world fashion oriented. The scale development of China Graduate Fashion Week reflects the prosperity of China fashion industry and fashion education.

Promote the business landing and graft the resources of industrial chain

The future of China Design lies in the cultivation of design talent and China Graduate Fashion Week is dedicated to cultivating the outstanding designers for China Design.Some designers have become the major force of China's new-generation designers. Therefore China Graduate Fashion Week, under the guidance of China Fashion Association, promotes all resources of fashion industry chain to be involved, to further connect with the industry and promote transformation of talent resources.

We are delighted to see that more and more fashion brands begin to pay close attention to the fashion week. During this fashion week, design directors frommore than ten brands, including ANZHENG,EXCEPTION,EP, ERDOS, came to the fashion week. They hope to tap excellent design talents to their companies by seeing the graduate show and then the face-to-face talk.

As the exclusive title sponsor of this fashion week, Beijng Sinotex Yongking Investment Co., Ltd.，assigned some buyers to visit the graduate show of different colleges for tapping design talents and promoting the business landing.Guo Yi, President of Beijng Sinotex Yongking Investment Co., Ltd. said that to seek talents and provide support on entrepreneurship has become one of the goals for being the exclusive title sponsor. In the future, he also hopes the graduate designs of the fashion week can be finished in SHOW TOWN. SHOW TOWN will work with China Graduate Fashion Week to build an IP as one of the channels for new Chinese designers to enter the market. For the newly joined designers, SHOW TOWN will provide all-round support from capital, venues, raw materials and stores.

Missioned with “promoting the connection between design and market”, DHUB Design launched DHUB Pop-up Store, the new concept store. It gathered the newly creative and most IN design worksfrom 9 dynamic promising designers. Only in 7 days, more than 150 items were sold. The DHUB Pop-up Store, with the business operation mode by diversified integrating show and sale, interactive art， brought unique consumer experience, and let more young designers can connect with customer, attract the attention of the young customers and experience the balance of value between business and creativity. The brand new DHUB Pop - up Store has enriched the function of business landing for graduate fashion show.

Extend the function of platform to boost the development of promising designer

As a function extension of the China Graduate Fashion Week, the organizing committee arranged various activities, including forum, job fairs, seminars, and open class,expecting to enrich thestereo feeling of fashion week with diverse angles.

As one of the organizers of the fashion week, D·PARK Culture Development CO.LTD continued the series of activities, including the “751 open fashion class” and “751 job fair for design graduates” .The “751 creative workshop” and “751 design market” were organized for the first time.

The “751 open fashion class” invited Liu Hiacheng, the partner and Chief Designer of U.TCPPT Investment and Management company and Wang Zhaoli, General Manager of Qingdao Jiuxi Apparel Company, with the contradict of design creativity and corporate development appeals as pinpoint, to discuss how the design graduates can cultivate themselves in workplace to help them broaden the career ideas from the perspective of a designer and a head of a company.The famous fashion blogger Liu Wenjun talked about the essence of fashion industry from the perspective of "Opinion leaders" , what qualities should a human need if you want to get into the fashion industry or if you hope to develop better, and what knowledge should a human needs to master. The rich content got all the positive response from the audience. Li Jie from Langjie Fashion, pointed out that the opportunities and challenges of employment environment in the current fashion industry, and analyzed the different requirement of regions for talent qualities and skills.

“751 job fair for design graduates” attracted more than 50 enterprises and some enterprises made a consensus on employment with the graduates on the scene. The job fair provide a two-way platform for enterprises and graduates and has won highly recognition from both sides.

Zhang Qinghui pointed out that the organizing committee hopes to provide richer,and more diverse industry content to enrich and improve the service function of the fashion week and help the young design talent growth.

Set series of awards to connect with the market

The high-profile 22nd China Fashion Young Talent Award was revealed after rounds of selections and strict evaluations. 10 candidates, namely Zhang Mengyun, Qin Tai, Chen Yilin, Liu Jing, Wu Yashuang, Liu Yong, Hao Yuming, Zhao Wanyi, Xu Ting,and Li Zhichao, won the “Young Talent Award”. Besides, the “Excellent Guide Teacher Award” and “China Fashion Design Cultivation Award” were revealed in the ceremony.

Unlike previous years, to encourage and tap outstanding design talent, make enterprise and market demand oriented, strengthen the fashion week to connect with the market, and improve the balance ability of graduate works between creativity and market, the organizing committee, on the premise of respecting the education characteristics of every apparel design discipline, specially set up 7 special awards, including men's wear design award, women's wear design award, fabrics award, technology award, market potential award, style innovation award, accessory collocation award. China Graduate Fashion Week hopesthe selection of these awards can better graft the bridge for the graduates to the market, promote the continuous improvement of the talent education.

China Graduate Fashion Week has marched successfully in the fifth year. It is not the show for graduation report performance, and the exchange &learning and promote employment are the two functions. On the platform, the participating colleges can view the teaching achievements of other universities, and find the differences for comparison and study. The Graduates can get many resources and opportunities from it and can take the first step to society better.Enterprises can more directly and effectively discover the needed talents and promote the development of brands.

As Mr. Zhang Qinghui said, in today when the industrial transformation and upgrading enter the critical period, the whole fashion industry should pay more attention to fashion education, pay attention to the growth of young designers, and provide them all-round service platform together.Only by this can the Chinese fashion industry be more energetic and more splendid.