Fashion and Textiles: Education means Business’ – TI Graduate Designers’ Exhibition
The beautifully modernised historic HM Treasury building in Horse Guards Parade, London, was for the second year running the location for the ‘Fashion and Textiles: Education means Business’ event on 11 July 2007, organised by the Design Special Interest Group (SIG) under the chairmanship of Professor Clare Johnston, and with the help of Lord Haskel, past World President of the Textile Institute. The event enabled some of the leading fashion and textile colleges and universities in the UK, all corporate members of the Textile Institute, to demonstrate to invited guests from industry and retail the range of their fashion and textile programmes. Each college presented a profile of their institution with contact names and addresses, and was represented by a member of staff with three recent graduates exhibiting examples of their work.
The participating institutions were Bolton Institute, Central St Martins College of Art and Design, Colchester Institute, De Montfort University, London College of Fashion, Loughborough University, Faculty of Art & Design Manchester Metropolitan University, Hollings Faculty Manchester Metropolitan University, Nottingham Trent University, the Royal College of Art, and the University for the Creative Arts at Rochester.
The event was a practical example of the support that The Textile Institute gives to education, and particularly of the importance that the Institute places on design and the contribution of design education to the success of the textile industry world-wide. Lord Haskel in his opening speech stressed the increasing economic value of what is now called the creative economy in the UK, and how fashion must work closely with technology and education with industry.
The event was opened by Lynne Burstall, Creative Director of Coast, part of the Mosaic Fashions Group. It was attended by over two hundred directors and executives from industry and retail, including many from small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The excellent method of presenting the work on a hanging system encouraged guests to circulate from college to college and engage in informal discussion with college staff and graduates. The links formed between individual companies and colleges were a gratifying outcome to the event, and equally there is no doubt that many graduates were able to boost their career prospects by making the right contacts.
The Institute is very grateful to the companies that sponsored the event: Alvanon UK, Coast, Gerber, and Hobbs. Each company had a display area in an adjoining room, where there was also a presentation of CAD developments for fashion and textiles in the secondary school sector.
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