Texprint Winners: Paris

On 17 September 2014, Nino Cerruti presented prestigious prizes to the exceptional British-trained textile design graduates selected to exhibit under the auspices of Texprint at Indigo/Première Vision.

Nino Cerruti said, “The world is full of crazy artists – but we are industrial designers. We must be artists and designers.

The creative and imagination skills need to translate back into clothing and real applications. It is so pleasing to see that the next generation of designers selected to exhibit at Texprint 2014 understand the commercial imperatives that underpin successful design.”

Eminent representatives from the worlds of fashion, interiors, specialist textiles and retailing selected four highly talented graduates from British universities for prizes in the Colour, Pattern, Space and Body categories. 24 designers were in contention for the Texprint prizes, as well as The Woolmark Company Texprint Award and, new for 2014, the Miroglio Texprint Award for Digital Innovation. lululemon athletica had already announced the names of 2 winners. The winning designers each received £1000.00

Barbara Kennington, Chairman, Texprint said: “This exciting new edition of the Texprint showcase at Indigo/PV offers both fashion and interiors industries the opportunity to view the collections of rigorously selected ‘best of the best’ graduate textile designers, all trained in Britain. Their work is unique, exclusive, totally fresh; as designers each is highly talented, professional, and ready to take the textile industry by storm!”

TEXPRINT® AWARDS 2014
The Texprint prizes were awarded as follows:Space: Georgia Fisher
Georgia Fisher completed an MA in Textiles: Weave at the Royal College of Art, having previously gained a BA in weave at Central St Martins. She was awarded bursaries in 2013 and 2014 from The Worshipful Company of Weavers and won the 2014 Jaeger competition. She gained work experience with The Jackson.

Body: Federica Tedeschi
Federica Tedeschi recently completed an MA in Mixed Media Textiles at the Royal College of Art, following a BA in Weave at Central St Martins in 2008. She exhibited at Energy Futures in France in 2012, reflecting her interests in science, new technology, art, architecture which she brings to bear on the final result and impact of her textiles. Previous awards include 2013 The Haberdashers Company award and she won the 2014 100% Optical – eyewear design competition.

Colour: Charlotte Beevor
Charlotte Beevor studied Printed Textiles and Surface Pattern Design at Leeds College of Art. She was awarded the Society of Dyers and Colourists Main Bursary and also won the 2014 New Designer of the Year award at New Designers in London. Obsessed with colour, the SDC bursary enabled her to push her research and investigations into colour and acted as a great origin for her design practice. Her large scale paintings have created a positive influence on various environments.

Pattern: Jane Zhang
Jane Zhang completed an MA in Printed Textiles at the Royal College of Art following a BA (B.A) in Fashion Design Technology: Surface Textiles at the University of the Arts London, London College of Fashion. At just 17 she moved to London from her native China, learning English and absorbing the British culture. She enjoys travelling and her interests in different societies and cultures is reflected in her work. Her work was acknowledged as a finalist in 2013 ‘Sacred Stitches’ Waddesdon Manor; 2012 ‘Design Against Fur’ Competition Finalist, British Fashion Council and London Fashion Week. She has worked at Zhandra Rhodes as a printed textiles intern
This year’s judging panel comprised: Sarah Campbell, co-founder of the influential print design partnership Collier Campbell; Jill Chatwood, director of design at activewear company lululemon athletica; Eifion Grifiths, owner and director of Welsh weaver Melin Tregwynt; Henry Graham, chief creative officer and co-founder of design retailer Wolf & Badger; and Sue Roberts, design director, home, of department store group House of Fraser.
Sue Roberts of House of Fraser noted: “There are so many boundaries and restrictions in retail. It’s great to see work with no boundaries.”
*Charlotte Beevor and Federica Tedeschi also won the lululemon athletica prize

THE WOOLMARK COMPANY TEXPRINT AWARD
The Woolmark Company Texprint Award encourages designers to use Merino wool and its award goes to the designer using at least 60% Merino wool in an innovative manner. Judged by the renowned Italian designer Nino Cerruti (Lanificio Fratelli Cerruti) and Agi Mdumulla and Sam Cotton of the trend setting menswear brand Agi & Sam, the prize was awarded to Tali Furman. Highly commended were Kaila Cox and Zana Ajvazi.

Nino Cerruti said, “It has been a very difficult decision because all the candidates for The Woolmark Company award had something interesting and unique to present. So we decided to set the criteria of creativity, innovation and harmonious design, as well as of course respecting The Woolmark Company rule that the work must incorporate at least 60% Merino wool. It is great to see a very high level of work from both a technical and creative point of view – especially to team creativity and energy resulting in ideas that become real practicable textiles.”

Agi & Sam added, “It has been a great pleasure to judge The Woolmark Company Texprint Award with Nino Cerruti – our tastes came together despite being of different generations. We all had the notion that if you have an identity it needs to be strong. We were looking for a combination of strong technical ability, creativity and cohesive designs. And there are lots of strong candidates amongst the Texprint2014 designers. Currently there is lots of interest in technology and different digital effects, but it’s also good to see older techniques such as screenprinting making a comeback. It’s good to see that emerging designers understand and enjoy combining the old and new technologies.”

THE LULULEMON TEXPRINT INTERNSHIP AWARD
Charlotte Beevor and Federica Tedeschi, who won the prestigious Texprint prizes for Colour and Body respectively, also won the lululemon athletica award, which was judged and announced on 9 July at the Texprint presentation in London. Each received £1,000 and will be taking up a paid three-month internship at Lululemon Athletica headquarters in Vancouver, Canada.

Jill Chatwood, lululemon athletica, commented: “[Texprint] was always the area at Indigo/PV in Paris that had the most exciting stuff… the more I learnt about Texprint, the more we realized they connected with what we believe in from a design perspective. Three years ago we decided to get more involved and sponsor Texprint and now we benefit, as the quality of interns we get from Texprint is unparalleled. I’m passionate about bringing together art and athleticism. These aren’t areas that people generally put together but athleticism is a form of art and art can be athletic and dynamic too. Looking forward one of our goals has been creating print that feels more handmade than computer generated – designing prints with personality and feeling, made by human beings, with love. I feel that Charlotte and Federica‘s work embodies that spirit.”

In addition to the main prizes, Unindustria Como has awarded eight 7-week work placements with manufacturers within its group where the designers will gain invaluable professional guidance and experience.

Marco Taiana of Unindustria Como said: “We started our cooperation with Texprint in 2008, inviting British trained designers to come to Como and to spend a period of internship in the offices of the most important silk mills of the district. We realized the excellent level of designers coming from UK and the excellent work that is done by Texprint in selecting its stars.”

MIROGLIO TEXPRINT AWARD FOR DIGITAL INNOVATION
New for 2014 was the Miroglio Texprint Award for Digital Innovation, awarded to one of the Texprint 2014 selected designers – providing the opportunity to gain professional experience with the prestigious brand at the company’s Piedmont headquarters in Italy. It has been awarded to Charlotte Hetheridge for her innovative screen-printed designs created by optimising the natural properties of a variety of base fabrics inspired by objects previously held as status symbols such as falcons, lace and ceremonial armour.

Elena Miroglio of Miroglio Group, said “Miroglio Textile has a long and distinguished historical association with fashion education. Miroglio Textile believe strongly in close collaboration with leading schools as they are a unique and infinite source of stimulation in terms of creativity and innovation.”
All 24 Texprint designers receive a one-year subscription to global online trend service WGSN (sponsored by WGSN) and a Pantone Colour Guide (sponsored by Pantone).

Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics – Autumn Edition in 2014
In October 2014, Texprint will present the work of the 2014 winners at Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics – showcasing the designers to buyers and manufacturers who attend this prestigious event from the Far East and across the world. The Woolmark Company has generously supported a dedicated area on the Texprint stand where the winner of The Woolmark Texprint Award will exhibit their full collection. (Intertextile Shanghai apparel fabrics W1G18, Hall W1)

Photography: James McCauley. Text: Texprint

The Texprint programme – funded by industry and charitable institutions – has helped close to 1,000 new designers launch their careers in over 40 years since its launch. Texprint’s alumni have gone on to establish their own brands, such as fashion designer Alice Temperley and scarf designer Emma J Shipley; set up design studios such as Kirsty McDougall of Dashing Tweeds and knitwear designer Sophie Steller; or have joined the creative departments of international design houses and major retailers, including Givenchy, Tom Ford, Roland Mouret and Marks & Spencer.