Supima planning digital version of its Design Competition in 2020

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jul 24, 2020

Supima, the cashmere of cotton, is taking its next design competition for emerging talent online, in honest recognition of the difficulty of social distancing in fashion today.

A non-profit organization that promotes the use of U.S.-grown American Pima cotton around the world, Supima will be marking the 13th edition of its annual Supima Cotton Design Competition.

This year’s final lineup includes six young talents drawn from key fashion and design colleges in the United States. They include Amanda Forastieri, Drexel University; Sakura Mizutani, Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising; Jenny Feng, Fashion Institute of Technology; Jennie Nguyen, Kent State University; Terrence Zhou, Parsons School of Design and Kyra Buenviaje, Rhode Island School of Design.

The virtual presentation, which will be simulcast on Instagram Live leveraging a mix of pre- recorded and live video content, will take place in September to align with New York Fashion Week.

“We’re truly just honored to continue working with our design school partners to give this talented group of their recent graduates the resources they need to create their collections. This year’s design school graduates across the country have been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and are struggling to find jobs or platforms to share their designs.  We knew it was more important than ever to stay nimble and shift this competition into a virtual format that would help these recent graduates with their first step into the fashion industry post- graduation,” said Buxton Midyette, VP of marketing & promotions at Supima.

The competition supports emerging talent by enlisting student designers from the nation’s top fashion schools to create capsule collections using Supima cotton fabrics. These will be presented in a collective digital runway show and evaluated by a panel of judges. The winner of the competition will receive a $10,000 cash prize and industry recognition. Moreover, a further 10 young designers – finalists of the Festival de Hyères - will be given the chance to present one look in Supima, with backstage interviews by  Jean-Pierre Blanc, the festival’s founder and director, at Supima Design Lab during Paris Fashion Week in late September.

CFDA-award-winning eveningwear designer Bibhu Mohapatra returns for the sixth time as mentor to the finalists, providing feedback and insight throughout the design process.