The winners of Futuretex Istanbul Fabric Design Competition, organised by Istanbul Textile and Raw Materials Exporters’ Association (ITHIB) and coordinated by Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM), have been announced. Organised for 18 years, Türkiye’s first and only fabric design competition open to international participants continues to contribute to the development of the sector with the innovative designs and ideas of young designers. Futuretex creates added value by gathering both experienced names in the sector and young people willing to add a different dynamic to the sector under one roof.
Chairman of the Board of Directors of ITHIB Ahmet Öksüz emphasised the future of the sector at the organisation where Futuretex winners received their awards as follows; “As the sector, we think not only about the near future but also about our tomorrows. The future of our sector is through design. Our export unit prices also show us that Turkish fabric is a brand. We consider design as one of the key elements of value-added exports. The key to the future and value-added exports is in design.”
Shower of awards to young designers
In the Futuretex competition; Seçil San won the 1st place and Singer special award, Gülşah Yılmaz won the 2nd place and Arife Gedik won the 3rd place. Betül Tezcan won the special award of İpekyol. The finalists, who were selected among more than 200 applicants, were entitled to receive an education abroad and a 6-month foreign language education award with the support of the Ministry of Trade. The finalists achieving success with their designs received financial incentives in addition to these awards. The winner of Futuretex was awarded 200 thousand TL, the second was awarded 150 thousand TL and the third was awarded 100 thousand TL. Furthermore, young designers will be able to receive design education at Istanbul Fashion Academy to improve themselves thanks to the awards they won.
The awards given for the development of designers who contribute to the sector not only ends with this. The top five finalists of the competition can also visit one of the world’s leading exhibitions in the sector. Presenting sewing machines to all finalists in the competition, Singer has shown its support for young designers.
Evaluating the situation of the sector in Futuretex competition, Ahmet Öksüz stated: “As the Turkish textile sector, we were aiming to complete exports at the end of 2023 with 13 billion dollars as in the previous year, but global trade is passing through a narrow corridor. Our textile sector was highly affected by the earthquake disaster, which we can call the biggest disaster of the century that we experienced in February. We consider 2023 as a lost year due to the great destruction caused by the earthquake centred in Kahramanmaraş, the prominent city of our textile sector. The decline in our textile sector exports is around 10 percent. However, the rate of decline in textile imports from the EU and the USA, which are our largest export markets, is much higher. Although the European Union countries and the USA experienced a 20 percent decline in textile imports, we are happy to be able to maintain our shares in these markets.”
Value added designs improve the sector
Delivering an opening speech at the award ceremony, the President of the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM), Mustafa Gültepe underlined that we will take our country to higher levels in textiles and garment industry with our design capacity that gets stronger every year. He stated that design has a clear multiplier effect on value adding that this effect increases even more with innovation and branding.
Chairman of the Board of Directors of ITHIB Ahmet Öksüz indicated that young people are the future of the sector as follows: “Design is of great importance for the Turkish textile industry to have a strong presence in global markets in the future. We will carry our industry much further by bringing young talents to our industry and strengthening our design perception.”