The International Talent Support competition has selected 41 finalists
for its 15th edition across fashion, accessories, jewellery and art, which
will be presented in Trieste, Italy in July.
The emerging designers platform received 935 applications this year from
78 countries, with students from 200 fashion academies in 53 nations taking
part in the competition’s first phase. It received applications from both
students in their final year as well as from recent graduates, which
founder of the competition, Barbara Franchin states is a “generation of
creatives that are changing their skin”.
The finalists were selected after a week of deliberation by a judging
panel that includes fashion designers Iris Van Herpen, Nicola Formichetti,
and Kei Kagami as well as Swatch creative director Carlo Giordanetti and
British fashion editors Colin McDowell and Sarah Mower.
Organisers stated that all the applications showed an “amazing level of
quality, making the selections particularly challenging,” with the 41
finalists hailing from 21 nations: Austria, China, South Korea, Denmark,
France, Japan, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kazakhstan, Lithuania,
Malaysia, New Zealand, Paraguay, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland,
Taiwan and the UK.
The competition has four areas, ITS Fashion, Accessories, Jewellery and
Artwork, with the fashion category selecting 11 finalists, including German
designer Anna Bornhold, who was the winner of the Chloé prize at the Hyères
International Photography and Fashion Festival in the South of France.
There is also a number of Asia talents including Séro Oh and Shinhwan Kim
from South Korea and Cheng Zong Yu from Taiwan.
In the ITS Accessories category two designers from the UK were selected,
Helen Kirkum from the University of Northampton, who won first prize at the
Cordwainers’ Footwear Student of the Year Awards in 2014, and Melanie
Lewiston from the Royal College of Art who specialises in headpieces. They
are up against designers from China, Italy, Japan, Paraguay, South Korea
and Taiwan.
The third British-based designer to be selected in the competition was
Elizabeth Lee, a Chinese-Taiwanese born designer based in London who
graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2014 with a degree in jewellery
design and is currently studying an MA in Jewellery and Metal at the Royal
College of Art.
In total there are 37 designers, as four of them will compete in two
categories, including Taiwanese designer Cheng Zong Yu and Lithuanian
designer Birute Mazeikaite, who have both been selected in the fashion and
artworks categories, while Slovenia designer Jana Zornik is nominated for
the accessories and artwork categories, and Japanese designer Chinami
Tokizawa is a finalist in both the jewellery and artwork categories.
Asia has the strongest presence with 18 finalists, closely followed by
Europe with 17, but there are notable additions this year with finalists
selected from New Zealand and Paraguay.
The International Talent Support prize final event will take place in
Trieste, Italy on July 16.
Images: courtesy of International Talent Support