The Asia Fur Futures Roadshow 2015 took place in June 2015, and delivered insightful workshops in five different Asian cities across nine days. Each year, a small team including IFF Asia director Kelly Xu, IFF director of communications Gorana Stojanovic and two designers/furriers: Rebecca Bradley from London and Django Steenbakker from Amsterdam, travel to different fashion schools around Asia and educate the students about fur.
The Roadshow aims to give the students an interactive experience, with the opportunity to touch fur samples and see first hand some of the techniques that can be used. This year, the Roadshow reached out to over 500 people, including established designers, lecturers, design students, aboriginal Taiwanese representatives, textile company management and media representatives.
Journalists were extremely interested in the event due to the rising popularity of fur garments in Asia; and coverage was featured by Vogue China, Elle China, Central News Agency, Fashion Express Taiwan, Women’s Wear Daily Japan and many others.
The students also took lots of positives away from the workshops, with many quoting that they didn’t know there were so many design possibilities with fur and that they would be keen to work with it and explore the possibilities within their own designs.
A special thank you to Kopenhagen Fur, Saga Fur, NAFA, FurLab Amsterdam and Rebecca Bradley for their support by providing fur technique samples for the roadshow. We would also like to thank the Asia region as a whole, and Kelly Xu in particular, for their continued support – having access to this Roadshow is truly making a tremendous impact for the next generation of fashion designers.
