The ITS#SEVEN Awards Outcome
November 28, 2008
| The ITS#SEVEN prizes were delivered several months ago now...But what was their outcome? The vast majority of the ITS awards include internships, projects, placements. In other words, they're not simple prizes like "yeah, you're cool, here's the trophy and the money, and we wish you good luck...See yaaaa!!" The philosophy behind them is always that of delivering an experience that will help the winner grow, receive more support and more exposure and make more contacts for his/her future. So here we are to report on what's happening with the prizes assigned last July! |
Mark Fast won the i-D Styling Award. i-D fashion editor Erika Kurihara was struck by his knitwear collection of outfits that contour to the body, with knitwear details like perfectly constructed spider webs positioned on the shoulders, along the waistline and on the front or back of the dress. The prize consisted of the opportunity to work for one month with the i-D team on the production of a photo shoot which will be published in a future issue of the magazine. At present the photo shoot still has to be done, but in the last three months Mark has paid several visits to the i-D offices in London to start talking about the concept. His clothes by the way have already been featured in a shoot that i-D did here in Trieste right after the event (we recently published an article about it and you can see his clothes in a couple of pictures), as well as in the magazine. We're looking forward to seeing the results of his collaboration with i-D!Vertice is the renowned boutique in Turin that joined ITS in the support of young talents by presenting the Vertice Award, giving the winner the possibility of showcasing their collection in the boutique windows during "Artissima", the International Art Fair that took place in Turin, 7-9 November. No better winner this year than Yuima Nakazato, who can definitely be described as a borderline talent that stands between art and fashion. His outfits are more like walking installations, sculptures that transform themselves, outfits that come from another dimension and another time. With Yuima Vertice boutique confirmed its interest in supporting the crossover from art to fashion and viceversa. Yuima's work was perfect to create an installation in the interior of the boutique. The installation allowed the visitors to participate in a dream-like, recreational experience populated by "kinetic" outifts. Yuima's choice of giving a performance-like dimension to his outfits, of making them dynamic instead of static, turns him into a representative of one of the most fertile movements in contemporary artistic research. |
 The enthusiasm for Yuima's work was such that he was also asked to participate in "Artissima" with a personal installation that confirmed his inclination towards to sculptural art. And that's not all. Together with Vertice boutique owner Roberto Trapani he also worked on a side project, developing a bag to celebrate the event. There were 1500 pieces produced that scarcely satisfied the great number of guests who requested it! For Yuima the whole experience was a huge success: the Vertice Award produced other opportunities for him to showcase his talent. The press and guests attending Artissima and the Vertice Boutique Vernissage were left speechless by his visionary work and we are sure this is just the beginning. We'll hear Yuima's name often in the future... |
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PITTI Immagine assigned the ITS#SEVEN PITTI Immagine Photo Award to photography finalists Debora Vrizzi and Martine Fougeron. The prize consisted of developing the promotional image of the womenswear fairs organised by PITTI in Milan (Touch, Neozone and Cloudnine). Debora shot the advertising image for the September '08 edition whilst Martine was asked to shoot the image for the March '09 edition. The images include the credits of the author and are used on all communicational material for the fairs. Moreover, in the fairs' catalogue is included a short detachable biography on the author of the image. Great exposure therefore both for Debora and Martine, since thousands of visitors attend the PITTI fairs! And here's the images they produced. On the left you can see Martine's pic and on the right Debora's: |
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The Diesel Award was assigned to Heikki Salonen, who started his 6 month internship with the Diesel Creative team in Molvena (Vicenza, Italy) at the beginning of November. On top of that, Heikki will receive 50,000 Euros to fuel his career and promote his work. The Diesel Award is intended to be the most tangible way to support the breakthrough of the winner into the international fashion scene, and it really is. We heard from Heikki via phone just a couple of days ago and he sounded thrilled about the experience. Working with an innovative fashion company like Diesel is an incredible opportunity to discover the secrets of industrial fashion production, that is a totally different thing from developing a freely inspired collection. A young fashion design graduate like Heikki knows little about the dynamics and procedures when you need to produce, for instance, not one pair of trousers but thousands. For example: Heikki goes to Diesel's creative director Wilbert Das and says "I want to use this fabric for my shirt" and Wilbert tells him "I'm sorry Heikki but it won't be possible because it's too expensive to use for 3000 pieces. We have this amount of money for the fabric so you need to find an alternative that matches our budget". See? When working in industrial production, fashion designers need to find the right balance between what they want to produce and the allotted budget. When Heikki ends his internship in April he'll be aware of a lot of new things that will be very useful for his career! 
Our report on the ITS#SEVEN prizes ends with young photographer Matthieu Lavanchy, who won the SVA Photoglobal Award. SVA - School of Visual Arts in New York has one of the most renowned and prestigious photography courses in the world. The collaboration between ITS and School of Visual Arts led to this award. It allows the winner to fly to NY to follow this intensive one-year course. It offers the opportunity to work in technologically advanced facilities with renowned professionals to bring critical rigor to the advanced photographer through critique, lectures, museum and gallery visits and dialogue with other participants. Remember we recently told you about May Heek, last year's winner (you can have a look at the article here)? Well, it's Matthieu's turn now and he wrote us that everything in New York city is going great. He's settled in a big apartment in Brooklyn where he also does his work and is really happy with how things are going. It will be interesting to hear his impressions when the course is over in one year's time! As you can see, even though months have passed since the ITS#SEVEN finals, the finalists are still benefiting from the prizes given to them in July! |
