International Talent Support contest cancelled for 2017

London - The International Talent Support competition to support and celebrate young designers that has helped launched the careers of designers including Demna Gvasalia, Peter Pilotto, Michael van der Ham, Aitor Throup, Mark Fast, and Haizhen Wang, has announced that its annual event will not take place in 2017 due to insufficient funds.

In an announcement, the International Talent Support stated: “Despite having fought and worked very hard to organise the 16th edition, the fundraising has been less successful than in the past years.

“The resources we collected are not enough to deliver it with the same level of quality we have achieved in the past 15 years. It has always been a difficult task. During this period, we collected 16 million euros, 80 percent of which from private companies. Everyone who works with events and cultural activities knows how unusual this is.”

The international competition for young designers, which takes place in Trieste, Italy, was founded by Barbara Franchin to give emerging designers across fashion, accessories, jewellery and art a platform to showcase their creativity.

During the last 15 years the International Talent Support has selected more than 550 finalists from 1,500 schools from 80 different countries. In 2016, the competition received 935 applications, with designers studying in the UK dominating, with close to 90 percent of portfolios coming from students of universities such as the Royal College of Art and the London College of Fashion.

It’s the domination of the UK-based students that produces so many finalists and winners, with the 15th edition belonging to Royal College of Art students, winning the ITS Accessories, the OTB Award, ITS Jewellery and the Vogue Talent awards. It saw British footwear designer Helen Kirkum described as one of the hottest talents for her sustainable trainer collection ‘Our Public Youth’. The young designer picked up both the ITS Accessories award and Vogue Talents Award.

International Talent Support competition will not take place in 2017

Commenting on the decision to cancel the 2017 edition, Franchin said: "For me, it is, of course, a very hard decision, but I am going through this difficult moment thanks to the support and the professionalism of my team. We have built the success of the ITS platform around the Contests and the Event, but they represent just the tip of the iceberg.

“We want to put all our efforts to explore what lies under the surface and make it visible for everyone. It is virgin land and we are very curious to discover what this new cycle will bring.”

The focus for the coming year will be instead to continue to nourish its network of young designers that it has been developing, as well as to continue to trace the history of fashion evolution through its creative archives. The unique collection features 16,000 portfolios submitted to the competition over the past 15 years, as well as 130,000 original graphics, over 220 outfits, 120 accessories, 80 jewellery pieces and more than 700 photography projects.

The International Talent Support has been supported by numerous fashion companies including OTB, the parent company of fashion brands Diesel, Maison Margiela, Marni, and Viktor&Rolf, alongside Japanese zip specialists YKK, watch group Swatch and jewellery brand Swarovski.

“For 15 years, thousands of young talents have been sharing with us their creativity from all over the world,” explains Franchin. “Since the beginning, we deeply understood the profound meaning of what we were receiving. We weren’t just dealing with projects, we were holding in our hand's seeds of pure creativity.”

Images: courtesy of International Talent Support