The Press on ITS
Looking at the press coverage (PDF) ITS receives each year is an excellent way to understand what the platform stands for on an international level and how it is perceived from the general public, since it’s always easy to tell yourself you’re doing a good job. The actual quality of the press ITS is featured in amazes us year after year, though numbers are important too: over 200 features in 26 countries. Europe, Japan, USA, the UK but also China, Jordan, Korea, Mexico, Pakistan, The Philippines, Singapore... Apparently the whole world talks about ITS. And when it’s CNN, Der Spiegel, L’Officiel and the like that talk about you well, it means things have gotten pretty serious. So let’s have a look at some of last year’s most interesting coverage.
Der Spiegel - Germany, April 18th 2015 “Young Energy” (PDF)
Walter Mayr personally visited our offices and spent time with us, looking at what we do and how we do it. He underlines - and appears to wonder, too - how we managed to turn Trieste into a global center for fashion, bringing a very young breath to a town that is known world over to have the highest age average among its population.
L’Officiel - Italy, October 1st 2015. “The source of Creativity” (PDF)
In this 2 page report by Fabiana Fierotti, ITS is defined as a “heritage of ideas”, stressing the importance of the ITS CREATIVE ARCHIVE for the fashion system. An “actual treasure that tells the story of fashion - and now of art too - like nobody ever did before.” The focus is on Barbara’s opinions, as she describes the launch of the new ITS ARTWORK contest field and details what justifies doing ITS in Trieste.
CNN - USA, July 14th 2015 “Stripper heels and cable-tie balaclavas: this is your fashion future” (PDF)
Allyssia Alleyne wonders at how the “still, stereotypically coastal scene that is Trieste on Sunday” was transformed the night before “into a sleek showroom for visionary conceptual fashion collections and the design school graduates who created them”. Included are also opinions by Demna Gvasalia, Balenciaga Creative Director and former ITS winner in 2004, by Carlo Capasa, President of the Italian Fashion Chamber and CEO of Costume National and by Massimo Giorgetti, Head of MSGM and Pucci, who were in the fashion jury last July.
Paris Match - France, July 24th 2015 “Tomorrow’s designers won’t be French, damn!” (PDF)
Editor in Chief of Paris Match Catherine Schwaab goes in depth in several of the finalists’ collections, highlighting some of her favourites being Richard Quinn’s cracked couture and 2014 winner Katherine Roberts-Wood’s. But it’s when closing her analysis that she underlines the thing that surprised her most: “upon leaving, sadly, the small town of Trieste I asked myself why a contest of such high quality doesn’t happen in a town in France, as beautiful and welcoming as this one and... one that is not Paris?”.
Dazeddigital.com - UK, August 21st 2015 “Meet the gang of global designers winning big” (PDF)
“Every year, the fashion industry’s insiders descend on the sleepy town of Trieste to search out the next gen of design talents”, this is the opening of the Dazed feature on ITS 2015, followed by a list of some of the names that have been among the jurors, giving the platform an “illustrious history”: Gareth Pugh, Isabella Blow, Marina Abramovic, Raf Simons and Ari Marcopoulos. But it’s not just the jurors, there’s names among the past finalists too: from Demna Gvasalia to Peter Pilotto, Astrid Andersen and Maiko Takeda who ended up with her work on Bjorks Vulnicura album cover. “The finalists who compete will be the future” Barbara told Dazed. And Dazed acknowledges that “Franchin may be just right”.
There is nothing we want to add on the above, we feel these are good examples of what ITS has become. This is just a tiny fragment of a very dense press review which you can integrally access here on our website following the link opening this article.
In the Press section you can also find hundreds of pictures, videos, as well as past press reviews. If what you’re looking for is a compendium of the best press we ever received, then have a look at the “Greatest ITS 2002 - 2015” (PDF). And if you’re still not convinced, our past finalists speak for themselves, check out those with their own lines and have a look on how many of them work for the most renown brands.
...Have we convinced you to pin down ITS 2016 in your calendar?