ITS announces this year’s 36 finalists: over 600 projects from 60 countries and one finalist is Kenyan
Anyango Mpinga is an Eco-Innovator who has embraced the principles of circular fashion to explore radical systems in textile design and promote conscious consumption of apparel and accessories. She founded the eponymous brand in 2015, now renowned for its reimagined white shirts; bold prints; balanced between androgyny and a bohemian aesthetic. She designs with an ethereal quality that is reminiscent of the romantic victorian age while maintaining a sophisticated boyish edge. As a forward thinking designer, Anyango is exploring the use of emerging technologies to ecreate biodegradable textiles.
The ITS event has been postponed to October 2020. Regeneration, circularity and creative responsibility: sustainability in all its forms is the key trend.
We are in our darkest hour. What has overwhelmed all and each one of us in the last few months wasn’t in the least imaginable. Our interpretations of this moment are manifold, but whatever we may choose, we are certain that we must, and can, overcome this darkness, renewed and regenerated.
Now more than ever, we feel we belong: this year’s chosen theme, Here We Belong, has been, once again, predictive, and even more so now that our belonging to the original places and cultures, to our communities, but most of all to humanity, has taken on such a profound meaning.
Now more than ever, this community is demonstrating its commitment, its resilience, its sense of belonging. And the creativity which motivates and inspires it is a fundamental key to open up the treasure chest of our future. Although we are unable to run ITS 2020 as customary, in July, and Eve have postponed it to October 23, our community is working relentlessly, supported, as usual, by the institutions, the territory and all the partners that have never ceased to back us up.
Physical distance is upsetting, yet inspires us a strong desire to fill it. In the last few weeks we have received, assembled and examined over 600 portfolios from more than 60 nations, and we completed the pre-selections via digital meetings, with our usual, unbreakable enthusiasm, amplified by the awareness that guiding, giving voice and promoting the new generations of creative talents will prove to be of even greater value in the post-pandemic period.
“All this, that for us represents continuity and security, today acquires a new value and meaning – says Barbara Franchin, founder and director of ITS, recently recognized by Forbes as one of Italy’s 100 most distinguished women – The collaboration and support from the territory and the partners, as well as the extraordinary resilience shown by the ITS team and by all the talents who decided to take part in the 2020 edition, acquire today a greater meaning and impact on our project and on each one of us. Every portfolio received is a like a germ of resilience, the will to regenerate, the hope for a different future to be conceived and created together”.