For the second year in a row, the largest all-Ukrainian business forum for the light industry, Light Conf V 2.0, brought together leading professionals, industry experts and other representatives of this very ‘difficult’ industry, including clothing and materials manufacturers, designers and stylists, distributors, investors, market and related sector experts, bloggers, etc.
An incredible atmospheric location in the center of Lviv hospitably hosted the participants on July 26-27, 2024. This event brought together leading players in the light industry and government to share knowledge, insights, experience, case studies and a vision of the industry's future, find new partners and expand opportunities, and get a powerful boost of motivation.
The initiator and main partner of the event was Softorg, a technology accelerator for the light industry and a leader in the sewing equipment market, as well as a permanent, powerful stakeholder of Kyiv National University of Technologies and Design.
At the invitation of the organizing company, the representatives of the University – Liudmyla Hanushchak-Yefimenko, Vice-Rector for Research and Innovation, Doctor of Economics, Professor; Natalia Ostapenko, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Fashion, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor; Tetiana Struminska, Head of the Department of Fashion and Style, PhD, Associate Professor, actively positioned the KNUTD brand at the forum, communicated with Ukrainian manufacturers, partners, experts, fellow educators and other fashion industry professionals.
The two-day event featured powerful professional speeches by top experts in the consumer goods industry, informative and useful training sessions, interesting panel discussions, thematic meetups on the most important issues, and effective networking. The key topics included modern digital tools and services in the light industry, identifying customer needs and understanding customer behavior, scaling marketing and sales strategies, engaging audiences through social media, innovative customer-focused corporate culture, artificial intelligence in the fashion industry, working with bloggers and product promotion, etc.
More than 30 top experts of the light industry shared their successful cases, ideas and experience. Yevhen Kudriavchenko, founder of Vintage Web Production digital agency, co-founder of the Ukrainian Digital Community, spoke on “How to understand customer needs and predict customer behavior”; Anna Nikolaieva, Media Head of Havas Digital, covered the topic “How to identify hidden customer needs?”.
The participants were impressed by the analytical report of Taras Prytula, Corporate Social Responsibility Director at Softorg, who reminded that light industry is strategic among non-food industries; outlined the consequences of Russia's full-scale invasion of the light industry in 2022; highlighted problematic issues in the environmental, innovation, raw materials, human resources, and education; suggested ways to communicate and combat the stigmatized perception of the sector; emphasized collaborations, partnerships, and associations in the industry; focused on popularization and changing attitudes towards the sector, etc.
Panel discussions were also held. The leading experts shared their success stories and answered questions from the participants. The topic of the first panel, "How can brands develop products that meet customer needs and preferences?", was thoroughly covered by Serhiy Paraska, founder and CEO of Stimma; Tetiana Vovk, co-founder of Vovk company; Andreas Moskin, co-founder of Andreas Moskin company; Olha Steinle, founder of Roksana company. The second panel was devoted to the topic of “Scaling Marketing and Sales Strategies”, with creative speakers including Victoria Korol, founder of the Queen Wear brand; Andriy Logvin, co-founder and CEO of Kasta company; Anastasia Dziuba and Anna Bets, co-founders of the MustHave brand; Kateryna Zhurakivska, Marketing Director of Gulliver; Olha Tretiak, Marketing Director of Anoeses.
The highlight of this year’s Light Conf V 2.0 was the show of collections by KNUTD students, winners and participants of the International Competition of Young Designers “Pecherski Kashtany”. For a long time, a loud applause accompanied the fashion show of modern clothing models, designed by Marina Zaikina with the Murena collection; Vitalina Sugak with the Northern Star collection; Lilia Kara with the Trypillian Renaissance collection.
An incredible amount of warm hugs, hundreds of friendly handshakes and smiles, concentration of professionalism, expert advice and recommendations, victories and failures, new acquaintances, interesting speeches by experts about the light industry trends; real stories of entrepreneurs about challenges, results and experience.
We sincerely thank Softorg for the invitation and the opportunity to showcase the fashion collections of the University students; for making a creative strategic platform for the development of the light industry, for the opportunity to share experiences, find partners, like-minded people and new business relationships, and develop modern and rational solutions to overcome the challenges faced by the light industry in wartime.
We wish everyone to learn and develop, unite, support and strengthen each other, including in collaborations! We wish you strength and inspiration for new projects! Together to our Victory!
02.08.2024
