16th EİB Fashion Design Competition Reaches Final Stage

Finalists in the 16th EİB Fashion Design Competition to be announced on 23 March, with the competition organised this year by the Aegean Ready-Made Clothing and Apparel Exporters Association with support from the Ministry of Commerce. Burak Sertbaş, President of the Aegean Ready-Made Clothing and Apparel Exporters Association, said the theme of the 16th EİB Fashion Design Competition has been set as contact-less, one of the trends created by the pandemic. "The 10 designers who reach the final will present their collections to the jury and compete for first place. Since 2005, our association has been working to establish a design culture in the ready-made clothing and apparel sector in our country and region, to support our exporting companies' design-focused work, and to promote the widespread use of designers in the sector. Our goal is to improve the international competitiveness of the Turkish ready-made clothing and apparel sector. While Turkey's ready-made clothing sector export unit price is USD 13.2, our export unit price as the EHKİB is USD 16.9. In a period marked by turbulence and uncertainty, this success we have achieved through design is the finest example of value-added exports."

Young designers make their names known to the world through the EİB Fashion Design Competition

Sertbaş added that the EİB Fashion Design Competition, which to date has brought successful designers such as Emre Erdemoğlu, Merve Uçar and Mahmut Ağaç to the sector, has been organised in previous years with themes including Awakening, Carnival, Migration, Manipulation, Mystery, Existence, Re-FORM, Newstalgia, The Message and Tech-tility. "Our finalists ranking in the top three in the competition will have opportunities for overseas education in addition to cash prizes, subject to the approval of the Ministry of Commerce. Additionally, the top 10 finalists will have the right to visit leading fashion fairs in the fashion sector, which will be organised with national participation by EHKİB under the decision of the EHKİB Board of Management. To date, more than 20 designers who have placed in the Fashion Design Competitions have had the opportunity to pursue master's degrees at world-renowned fashion schools with scholarships from the Ministry of Commerce. The mentorship of our competition is undertaken by fashion designer Özlem Erkan." Tuğba Hazar, Head of the EHKİB Social Organisations and Competition Committee, noted that competitors prepared a Spring-Summer collection for women and men for the first time this year, and recalled that the competition received intense applications. "The path to value-added exports runs through design. The ready-made clothing sector has earned its place among Turkey's most value-added export sectors today thanks to its years of investment in design. I want to emphasise that investments in design need to be increased for sustainable export growth. Our fashion competitions carry a very important mission at this point. We would like to thank our Ministry of Commerce, which enables us to realise our design competitions and supports design-related investments on every platform, and our Turkish Exporters Assembly."

Competition finalists:

• AYCAN ASİYE BAYRAK
• BİRCE AVCU
• BURAK GÜNEL
• EDA POLAT
• HASAN HÜSEYİN ÇANGA
• İZEL SANDIKÇI
• MANOLYA YALÇINKAYA
• NUR GÜNGÖR
• SEDEF BİRİCİK
• SELİN SUDE YAVUZ

EİB Fashion Design Competition Prizes

First Prize TRY 18,000 Second Prize TRY 13,000 Third Prize TRY 8,000 Overseas Education Scholarship Prize Designers who place will have the right to receive education at important fashion schools around the world for 2 years with support from the Ministry of Commerce.