Young Designers of Home Textile Advance to the Future
The finalists, which are entitled to be ranked among the invaluable projects of each other, of the 10th Turkey Home Textiles Design Competition, which is organized by Uludag Textile Exporters Association (UTİB), received their awards with a ceremony.
The awards found their owners in the Home Textile Design Competition, organized for the tenth time this year by UTİB. Project owners who were ranked among ten finalists selected by expert jury members in their fields received their awards with the online ceremony. Dilara Övet placed in the first rank with her Feel the Textures project, Berne Acar was placed second with her EcoPrint Project, and Ayşe Katılmış third with her Fungi project in the awards program moderated by journalist Funda Karayel and hosted Republic of Turkey Deputy Trade Minister Rıza Tuna Turagay and Chairman of the Turkey Exporters Assembly (TIM) Ismail Gülle.
One hundred and thirty two designers have received awards from this competition held so far to this date, of which ten of them have gained the opportunity to study abroad.
‘‘Sustainability and responsible production-consumption are trending now in the world.’’
Republic of Turkey Deputy Minister of Trade Rıza Tuna Turagay emphasized the importance of design competitions for the development of the textile and ready-to-wear industry and evaluated the contribution of the home textile industry to our exports. Turagay stated that Turkey carried out home textile exports amounting to 2.4 billion US Dollars in 2019 and continued his statements on the subject as follows, ‘‘In the first ten months of 2020, we realized an export amounting to 1.6 billion US Dollars. There is a 9.8 percent decrease, but when we compare the periods of March, April, and May with June, July, and August, there is a 75 percent increase in our home textile exports. Last September, we realized the highest monthly export we have realized since 2018, with 241 million US Dollars. The world is now going towards sustainability and an understanding of responsible production-consumption. Those who can design, reveal their fashion, and combine design with the product in a way can be successful in this period. Home textile is an area in which we are very strong. When we observe the world figures, we are in the fourth place in the world. We have a share of 4.1 percent in the total export market in the world with 50.4 billion dollars. We can easily market our home textile products to developed countries. We must make the most of this potential.’’
97 Percent of Designers Who Have Ranked For the Past 10 Years Work In This Sector
Pınar Taşdelen Engin, Chairman of the Board of UTİB, made the opening speech of the program and indicated that 97 percent of the young designers who were ranked for the last ten years that the competition was held started working in the textile sector in the field of design. Pınar Taşdelen Engin continued her statements on the subject as follows, ‘‘While conducting this competition, one of our primary goals was to let the young designers who study textile design think about home textiles in their career plans, and we were successful in this regard. Three of our students were awarded today, but all ten finalists are very lucky, and they made use of our training period very well. As UTİB, we have now turned all the trainings that we organize into training awards. We really think that investment in the education of a student is the greatest reward.’’
‘‘The dreams of our young designers will form our future’’
TIM President İsmail Gülle, who stated that it is important that the competition is held with the theme of ‘Sustainability and Responsible Production-Consumption’ this year, continued his statements on the subject as follows, ‘‘In the upcoming period, we need to carry out a sustainable production and export process in a way that will become even more important, and we must always maintain this responsibility. In this sense, the home textile industry has also come a long way. As TIM, we started our path with a slogan and target to have a Turkey, which provides a foreign trade surplus. We would like to congratulate the success of our industry that allows us to walk with firm steps on this path. We know that the future of the industries that do not take into account the thoughts, dreams, and designs of our youth is limited. We can easily compete with producers in many parts of the world through the contributions of our youth. Now, it is our greatest goal to proudly put the “Made in Turkey” logo on our products and sell this merchandise with this logo.’’