On September 11-12, 2024, a regular meeting of partners – teams participating in the international grant project “FashionTEX European Academy for Young Designers to Study Innovative Technologies in Digital Fashion Design” took place at the Amsterdam Fashion Academy (Netherlands). The KNUTD team within the project was represented by the teachers of the Department of Fashion and Style of the University, Associate Professor Alla Rubanka, and Assistant Yana Mamchenko.

During the first day of the meeting, each participant presented their expectations for the project, their interests, and their contribution to the common cause of digital fashion development. Delegates from the international universities, including Koefia Academy, Rome (Italy), Vilnius Academy of Arts (Lithuania), Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn (Estonia), the Amsterdam Fashion Academy (Netherlands), Lodz University of Technology (Poland), the University of Applied Sciences Zwickau (Germany), the University of Lisbon (Portugal), the Academy of Arts, Architecture & Design Prague (Czech Republic), Art Academy of Latvia (Latvia), presented their educational institutions and study programs, presented creative student developments and outlined plans to introduce CLO 3D into the educational process and involve students in the “FashionTEX” project workflow.

During the presentation, Alla Rubanka and Yana Mamchenko noted that this project is being implemented in the bachelor’s degree education programs “Modelling, Design, and Artistic Decoration of Light Industry Products” and “Design and Technology of Garments” of the Department of Fashion and Style and is currently being implemented in the courses “Computer Product Design”, “Digital Clothing Design Technologies” and within the optional course “CAD Technologies in the Fashion Industry”. In particular, the speakers noted the further dissemination of knowledge and practical experience gained by teachers as part of the training of project lecturers.

Adele Parker, a project expert in 3D fashion and textile design and a lecturer at the Amsterdam Fashion Academy, summed up the virtual design courses completed by the lecturers. Representatives of Augmented Weaving, Flavia Bon, and Anita Michaluszko, emphasized the need for students to master the skills of working in various graphic editors and programs for creating three-dimensional computer graphics, including modeling, rendering, animation, video post-processing, etc. to create high-quality realistic images and presentations of developments. During the coffee break, the participants were engaged in an active discussion of the courses completed within the project, the organizational aspects of preparing and holding the final screening of the festival, the peculiarities of the educational process in design education institutions, etc.

Antonio Lo Presti, architect, 3D designer, and lecturer at Koefia Academy Rome, spoke about the peculiarities of working with complex material textures in visualization and their reproduction in virtual products, making them realistic and voluminous.

Oleksandra Nosovska, a native of Ukraine and a graduate of the Amsterdam Fashion Academy, demonstrated her designs for virtual clothing collections for her own brand O.22.NOSOVSKA, and shared her experience and peculiarities of working in 3D design programs.

The project participants were hospitably welcomed and shown around the premises of the Amsterdam Fashion Academy, including classrooms, spacious sewing workshops provided with modern equipment where students can realize their creative ideas, as well as the student space and the Academy's garden.

On the second day, one of the project's curators, Victor Weichselbaumen, co-founder of Yokai Studios, presented the concept of maker space and stressed the importance of students' activity on social media, demonstrating their creative searches, inspirations, and stages of creating design projects. As part of the presentation, a workshop was held, where the participants of the meeting answered several questions about the forms of training and types of tasks to enhance the creative search of the participating students, their communication during the two-week Atelier course in the autumn of 2025 in Chemnitz (Germany), the creation of a support and information channel, ways to motivate participants and leisure activities.

Bernhard Reeder, project coordinator and chairman of the board of the European Cultural Forum, demonstrated the FashionTEX website, which is being developed and actively updated and will contain all the necessary information about the grant project participants. It is also planned to hold the final festival in November 2025 in Chemnitz (Germany).

At the end of the meeting, the participants summed up the work done and outlined plans and stages for the implementation of the ambitious project.

We express our gratitude to the Amsterdam Fashion Academy, the organizers of the FashionTEX project, and wish them further fruitful cooperation! Together we are shaping the future of education in the fashion industry.

19.09.2024