Textile Design Students Compete in Loro Piana’s “Knit Games”

 This semester, textile design students and faculty traveled to Italy for “The Knit Games,” a textile design competition sponsored by Loro Piana, a manufacturer of luxury yarns, apparel and home furnishings.

 

M.S. in textile design student Drew McKevitt and B.S. in textile design student Nina Nickerson visited the company’s headquarters in Quarona with Claire Beevers, director of the M.S. in textile design program at Jefferson (Philadelphia University + Thomas Jefferson University). While there, they learned about the Loro Piana brand and philosophy, toured the production facilities and viewed their collections of fabrics and scarves.

 

For the competition, the students received a visual design brief to design a collection of knit fabrics which reflect a vision of the future for the company’s brand. Their pieces will be judged during a second visit to Italy in April, and the winning team will have the opportunity to work on their designs with the Loro Piana knit development team and show their collection at Pitti Filati, the international yarn and knitting fair in Milan in June.

 

The Jefferson team will be competing against students from Politecnico di Milano in Milan and École Duperré in Paris.

Textile Design Senior Show--sneak peek

The Annual Textile Design Senior Show Reception will be held on campus at the Gallagher Center on Tuesday May 8, from 6pm to 8pm.  Here is a sneak peek at the work of two of the talented seniors in the show.  Watch this blog for additional posts of designs from our other great students.

Watercolor croquis by Marjorie Bertrand.

Madeline Halsey at work on a large scale painting.

Spring 2018 Textile Design Speaker Series--Alum Neha Jhunjhunwala

On March 2, Textile Design alum Neha Jhunjhunwala returned to campus to share her entrepreneurial experiences with Professor Denise Gutierrez's Design Management graduate class.  Ms. Jhunjhunwala spoke of the successes and challenges she has had in the textile industry, as well as the opportunity with business start-ups.  Everyone in attendance welcomed the engaging, inspiring and open discussion (as well as attempting to connect for summer internships in India!).  We were happy to welcome back Professor Peggy Goutmann--Textile Design professor and chair--to campus for the visit.  Thanks to Ms. Jhunjhunwala for being a supportive, engaged Textile Design alum!

Spring 2018 Textile Design Speaker Series--Nike

On January 31st, three representatives from Nike came to campus to recruit Textile Design students and to give a presentation on the company.  We were pleased to welcome back Christianna Wincek, Textile Design MS alum, as well as Nike recruiters Andy Croll and Kim Johnson.  All three shared their excitement with working at Nike and presented career possibilities.  The presentation, as always, made everyone in the audience ready to join the great company!

Spring 2018 Textile Design Speaker Series--Glen Raven

On January 30th, Kathy Remsa of Glen Raven kicked off the Spring 2018 Textile Design Speaker Series.  She shared with the students the history and possibilities of Sunbrella--innovative "outdoor" textiles.  Kathy introduced a semester-long project entitled "Sunbrella--What's Next?".  Graduate and undergraduate Textile Design students and undergraduate Textile Materials Technology students attended her presentation.  Check the blog in late May to see the results of this exciting project!