This is how students of the fashion, design, and creative industries see the industrial revolutions

The Hungarian Fashion & Design Agency launched a tender “Get in the Picture – New Talent of the Year” with Startup Campus, which has piqued great interest among vocational students. The tender’s topic is “Industrial Revolutions – From the Sewing Machine to Robots” so the teams selected by the jury will complete their creations on this subject. This time, the programme gives an opportunity to teams studying in six vocational schools to realise their submitted ideas: the entries include clothing collections raising sustainability and social questions, and design elements reflecting on the industrial revolution or self-expression. 

There was great interest in the “Get in the Picture – New Talent of the Year” tender, in which, the organisers targeted full-time vocational students interested in fashion, design, and creative professions. Altogether, 26 teams applied for the programme, that is, almost 90 students submitted a project; the jury picked 3 fashion- and 3 design-themed teams who can realise their ideas by the end of March.

In fashion, the Budapest Complex SZC Creative Vocational School’s students, the Scelestis team dreamed up a utopian clothing collection. The graphic design students’ collection was inspired by life after the 5^th industrial revolution to come in the future and the separation of the imaginary era’s upper and lower social classes so their creation depicts a world where the middle class has ceased to exist. The team plans to realise their collection from recycled and organic materials to call people’s attention to equality and empathy as well as sustainability.

The students of the SZC Wesselényi Miklós Secondary Technical School and Student Hostel in Nyíregyháza, Krea – Team gained inspiration from the first industrial revolution's still-popular innovation, jeans. The team’s members have been concerned with environmental protection, sustainable fashion, and the importance of eco-consciousness for years; thus, their goal in the creative process is recycling. The graduating fashion and style design students create their collections by transforming faulty or discarded jeans into usable garments and accessories. Moreover, they aim to show others at school and city events how to give a new life to old clothes.

The Dekorvarázs (Decor Magic) team from the SZC Báthory István Secondary Technical School in Zalaegerszeg was inspired by fractals, that is, shapes whose individual parts of different sizes appear to be miniature copies of the whole – like snowflakes. They design their clothes as well following this regularity, and the diversity of patterns makes their collections special and unique. With their ideas, they want to call people’s attention to the importance of fashion and environmental consciousness and the meeting of the two. They plan to create a multifunctional coat with a detachable skirt, among other things, while keeping sustainability in mind.

Extraordinarily talented students can participate in the programme not only from the side of fashion but design as well. The SonicON team from the SZC Vedres István Technical School in Szeged applied with a custom-designed ergonomic earphone concept with its own application. The members devoted to graphics were inspired by the fourth industrial revolution, virtual relationships, and the need for self-expression which is ever-growing with globalisation. Supporting this latter need, their earphone with its own app makes it possible not only to control the device but change its appearance according to the plans since the LED lights placed in the earphone’s cover will be able to display diverse sound waves.

The goal of the BKSZC Creative Technical School’s team, Csillagok (Stars) is to present the positive and negative consequences of industrial revolutions from different aspects with their work. Graphic design and photography students work on a thematically organised installation, complementing each other's knowledge, which would illustrate the main events of the industrial revolution, affecting all senses of the viewer.

The members of the Vágjuk a fát! (Let’s cut the tree!) team are students of the Kozma Lajos Woodworking and Creative Technical School. They designed a solid wood desk for the tender. During the creation, they will place Tiffany glass in the middle of the front inserts, which had become popular due to the industrial revolution and the boom of mass production. Everyone has their own strengths in the team; the design and appearance of the planned desk reflect the past and the present, industrial revolutions, and modern technologies.

An important pillar of the programme is that professional mentors help the teams in the product realisation phase lasting until late March. From the fashion side, Bence Csalár, fashion journalist and expert; Borbála Ferencz, fashion designer representing recycling and sustainability; and Szilvia Horváth, Head of the Fashion Designer Department of Mod ’Art will assist the teams. And from design, Máté Horváth, product designer; Sára Kele, product designer; and Dávid Pap, Managing Director of Fablab Budapest will provide professional support. After the product manufacturing phase, the programme will be concluded with an award ceremony, where the completed creations will be presented.