All the untold facts about the preselections
April 12, 2003
Phew, and for this year the preselections are over… the ITS#TWO finalists are 26, and they are coming from 19 schools from 14 nations… Hip Hip Hurrah… tra là là!
First of all we would like to thank who sent us their projects.
You can see the names of all applicants by clicking HERE
But the story that we want to tell you is much longer and much deeper: we received 683 entries from 141 colleges and academies spread across 41 nations from all over the world.
Oh, my goodness we nearly forgot to tell you something rather important: Soraya — from Schools and Contestants Office — won our internal bet ‘guess how many entries we will receive?’… she guessed the closest number of entries to the official total… She deserves a pizza now from the rest of the office… A pizza? How Italian we are here despite all this "Internationality"…
Well, getting back to the point: the entrants have so many different nationalities you cannot even begin to imagine… there are 63! Can you believe it… Federica — our International Press Officer — was absolutely shocked when counting them… Not that here at EVE we spend all our day counting and recounting usually — we do not live in Florida in fact — but we wanted to present you some numbers to give you an idea of what the f* (beep) we have been doing from the 31st March — the deadline to submit your portfolios as you all have forgot — and today — Friday 11th April — the Pre—selections Day…
Concerning portfolios, Barbara — the boss, our boss — who likes numbers more than anyone else here says that when you send in your portfolios to apply in whatsoever event you have to make things as clear and comprehensible as possible… you will be loved immediately! Just think that if you got 683 portfolios in 12 days (from 31st to 11th) dedicating a quarter of an hour to each one would mean looking at portfolios for 10.245 minutes which is 170,75 hours which is 7 days without stopping… if these portfolios are not clear enough then it takes even longer… so her advice is: Be clear and precise!
On a general level you seem — we are not making any kind of sexist survey — to prefer female bodies to male bodies if we consider the fact that we received more or less 600 womenswear collections, just 60 menswear collections and 23 mixed collections. Strangely enough it is more or less the same here at the office: we are nine girls — counting in our beloved cook Manuela who prepares us healthy food everyday — and 4 boys; well we have to say that we have two or three male castaways around the world… (you know who you are) but we are expecting them back home for Christmas (not for Christmas really but it was nice to say it… we are expecting them back for ITS#TWO).
We are very glad to know that you like reading National Geographic — which is a very interesting magazine — or La Gastronomica — which must be some Italian magazine that teaches you how to cook — but when we asked you which magazines you do read we honestly meant fashion magazines… but maybe we were not clear enough… and last but not the least please check your spelling sometimes… what magazine is Deutsch? Ever heard of Blank Book? Just remember this, since there are two with similar names: i—D (is the fashion one published in England and it is spelt small i dash capital D) the other one is spelt I.D. (Capital I dot Capital D dot). Wow, now we feel relieved!
And we are also very glad to know that you would like to have your mothers, fathers, boyfriends, girlfriends, cats, dogs, parrots, African frogs in the jury… but let’s be serious guys… that was a serious question… and by the way the most named fashion personalities were (and the Oscar goes to): Alexander McQueen (this explains the title, if you didn’t get it) followed by Hussein Chalayan and John Galliano ex—aequo!
So congratulations to everybody who applied, the portfolios were full of astonishing material… we were very impressed and best congratulations especially to stylists coming from Eastern Europe who have really grown up much if compared to previous years.
And thanks to everybody but in particular to all Dutch designers and Dutch schools… we could have never imagined to receive so many entries from your country… we really love you all… and thanks also to students and designers from United Kingdom… we do have the Cool Britannia with us! Wow again
Sorry if we pulled your legs a little bit… but we just wanted to have some fun with you… we do it all the time with ourselves… we are not being disrespectful… we are very proud of all your works and you have taught so much to each of us.
Well done! Now it is time for Fabio — our Graphics Guru — to play a little with the images taken from your portfolios as for Lidia — our little press officer coming from London — it is time to come out from Barbara’s office — where she has disappeared in these last few days — to raise the English level of this text before Fabio puts it on line.
Lunch is ready now… we have to go!
Thank you so much for enrolling!
With great respect and PEACE to all of you,
The EVErs
