SHOW TOWN · China Graduate Fashion Week 2018 was opened in Beijing

Another graduation season comes unconsciously with blossoming gardenia and midsummer singing cicadas. As the narrator and bearer of the academic fashion creative design, SHOW TOWN · China Graduate Fashion Week 2018 was opened at 751 D•PARK in Beijing on May 13 and held until May 20, 2018. More than 1,000 post-millennial graduates took part in this show of youth and released the design strength of a new generation. With creativity as a medium to avoid the stereotyped homogenized design, they used their ingenious ideas to color the corner of the capital in the late spring and early summer.

Great achievements have been made for the brand.

Time flied, and five years passed by in a hurry. After five years of efforts, the China Graduate Fashion Week has completed its brand development course from scratch to existence and from zero to one, and has become another beautiful stage except the China International Fashion Week. In this mid-spring season, it officially ushered in its own brand year and stepped into the way to fast development. During the five years of growth, a total of 61 colleges and universities at home and abroad held 157 graduation works shows, covering 19 provinces, cities and autonomous regions and 5 foreign countries, and also 48 forums/lectures and 6 special exhibitions with about 4,699 new graduates involved in. After years of development, the China Graduate Fashion Week has become an international professional service platform to promote the teaching achievements of domestic and foreign well-known fashion design colleges and universities, show the creative talents of excellent college graduates, and promote the entrepreneurship and employment of college students.

The China Graduate Fashion Week of this year continues to focus on the docking of new design talents and the market, and will hold almost 80 professional activities including works release, special exhibition, forum and lecture, design competition, professional selection, DHUB. 1,468 outstanding graduates from 54 higher education institutions and universities, both at home and abroad, participated in the dynamic release and outstanding works exhibition, which cover 21 provinces, cities, autonomous regions and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. In addition, four prestigious foreign fashion schools also took part in the event, including the University of Southampton, the UK and Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti (NABA), Milan Italy which have joined in the four consecutive sessions. The activity basically covered the main areas of the textile and garment industry clusters and also reached a new record high in terms of quantity of graduates, quantity of works released, category of creation, and level of creativity this year. Such graduate fashion week provides a platform to present strength of college students from domestic professional colleges and universities, and more importantly, it also becomes a new channel to test the educational and teaching results of those schools.

Innovation: A turning point to reshape strategic development

This year, however, as a special time point for the transition from the old era to the new, the China Graduate Fashion Week started the new mode of combining innovation and incubation, and has entered the "developmental" stage like puberty. In recent years, new opportunities have been brewed in the fashion industry chain, and the new generation of fashionable consumption environment has entered into the growth period. Innovation makes development and shapes the future. Mode innovation is the necessary means of reorientation and re-departure of the fashion week for the purpose of "transformation and upgrading". On the basis of continuing the consistent positioning and aim, the China Graduate Fashion Week of this year realized rebirth standing at a new starting point and also built a new situation under a new dimension around the theme of "space of making dreams".

The innovation of this year's fashion week is combination of "special activities". Besides common graduation works show, the fashion week also innovated and extended special activities, by holding 2018 China International Exhibition of Excellent Works from Well-known Colleges and Universities for the first time. From 35 colleges and universities both at home and abroad, 978 sets of excellent clothing and 57 pieces of fashion accessories were presented at 79 Tank, 751 D•PARK which is full of artistic atmosphere, completely revealing the creative concept and ideas of the new generation of Chinese fashion designers. In addition to domestic colleges and universities, the London College of Fashion and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, the UK, which both are famous domestically and internationally, also participated with their outstanding graduation works so as to conduct discussion and exchange on the platform provided by the China Graduate Fashion Week and help a new millennial generation of fashion designers rise.

Following the international standards, the China Graduate Fashion Week of this year also deepened and upgraded the Beijing Fashion Forum. On the basis of the Beijing Fashion Forum— Summit Forum on Sustainable Development of Fashion Industry, Beijing Fashion Forum—People Talk Bema and Beijing Fashion Forum—751 Fashion Class were added, so that a total of more than 20 lectures will be given during this period. It is worth mentioning that excellent young and middle-aged backbone teachers from well-known fashion colleges settled down their own national or provincial/municipal high-quality programs at People Talk Bema at 751 D•PARK and the "Middle-aged & Young Teachers’ Voice Plan" not only enriched and colored the whole fashion week, but also added a whole academic atmosphere to it, so as to guide those graduate novices who will fight alone for their fashion career just after graduation.

During the fashion week this year, the China Fashion Association (CFA) cooperated with well-known fashion agencies at home and abroad such as 751 D·PARK, GRIMMBRO, Guangzhou HuiMei Fashion Group, and Saga Furs to plan and hold a series of promotion conferences, exchange meetings of colleges and universities, dialogues with designers, through-train between colleges and enterprise, “Bag· Fun”, and other related interesting activities, to focus on the industrial development and innovation and strengthen the contact among professional colleges and universities, enterprises, and fashion institutions. Among them, “Bag· Fun” Chinese Original Designers' Bags Showroom and "You are the Barbie!" Experience Area will be open to the public at 751 Fashion Echo First Floor, 751D•PARK.

In addition, the design competition, professional selection and DHUB will be also held concurrently. The selection event of high-profile 23rd China Fashion New Design Award will present a grand awarding ceremony, to grand the China Fashion Design Education Award, Excellent Teacher Award, New Design Award, and other annual awards to those winning schools, teachers and students. 2018 “GRIMMBRO Cup” China (Undergraduate) Shopping Window Display Design Contest was launched and set up special exhibition at the designated area at 79 Tank. At the end of this fashion week, such awards as Men's Fashion Design Award, Women's Fashion Design Award, and Style & Innovation Awards will be announced and granted at the grand award-giving ceremony. Through the selection and awards, a bridge will be built to allow graduates to enter the market successfully and promote the continuous improvement and perfection of talent education in the universities and colleges.

Creativity incubation: Handing over the world to young people

With tending to a good prospect in stability and embracing a new trend in prospect, the China Graduate Fashion Week has become an incubator and booster for college students to start their own businesses and obtain employment. Different from mature experienced designers, these new graduates are not familiar with overall brand operation covering product planning, supply chain, marketing, and data analysis, and thus more difficult to obtain orders on retail channels and consortium funding at the initial stage. Aiming to promote the transformation of college students to innovation makers, the China Graduate Fashion Week will gradually lead some outstanding graduates in fashion design to step on the stages provided by the 10+3 Young Designers Base Plan, DHUB, and China International Fashion Week, and even the international fashion stages from their own small stage.

With the help of SHOW TOWN, 751 D•PARK, and other high-quality resources in the industry, the China Graduate Fashion Week is working to promote the development of the Chinese fashion and creative industry. As the exclusive naming supporter for three consecutive years of 2016, 2017 and 2018, SHOW TOWN continued its consistent training and support for China's new generation of original fashion designers this year, embodying its corporate responsibility to promote the development of the Chinese fashion industry. With the activity brand of China Graduate Fashion Week getting mature increasingly, 751 D•PARK has also become a nationwide well-known cultural and creative fashion industry park by relying on its own industrial advantages in software and hardware and actively promoting the benign development of the fashion industry, so as to provide new designers with a healthy and sustainable growth space.

Over the past five years, the China Graduate Fashion Week has contributed countless new generation design and business talents to the creative fashion design industry in Beijing and even China, many of whom have become the leaders and backbone in the industry. A series of activities of this year, as exchange and interaction among production, teaching and research institutions at a deeper level, will promote the linkage between design graduates’ career starting point and industry as well as the seamless joint between talent cultivation in universities and colleges and market demand, thus realizing the dream of a textile power and also practical and strategic significance of the strategy of reinvigorating China through talents. We understand that the China Graduate Fashion Week may survive to last only when the branding is realized. The China Graduate Fashion Week is integrating into the big context of the global fashion industry and also providing opportunities for more and more young designers. As a fashion design exchange activity among colleges and universities, it not only provides a new window for students majoring in fashion design to move towards the society, but also creates good opportunities for the future talent selection in the fashion design industry and for fashion enterprises to introduce design talents in a more direct and more efficient way. On the road drawing the blueprint for the future, the China Graduate Fashion Week will be revitalized with a new look and this implies that a more ambitious and long-term brand journey will be started.