| World's top fur supplier hooks up with Chinese designers |
BEIJING, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- China's first university fur design studio was officially inaugurated here Tuesday at the Academy of Arts and Design of China's prestigious Tsinghua University, sponsored by Copenhagen-based Kopenhagen Fur, the world's largest supplier of fur skins.
"I'm delighted and honored to be launching this cooperation with Tsinghua University to educate Chinese fashion designers," said Torben Nielsen, general manager of Kopenhagen Fur.
"Fur is an integral part of fashion and creativity is essential to sustain vitality. We are fully committed to cooperating with Tsinghua and growing the Chinese fashion industry," he added.
The 250-square-meter fur studio boasts state-of-the-art equipment and is divided into two function areas: a pattern-cutting area and a knowledge corner.
In the pattern-cutting area, 12 tables allow students and teachers to test their creativity. The knowledge corner will be a resource filled with Chinese and foreign books and magazines on fur and fashion, as well as computers that run design software. Research on international trends is just a click away.
According to Nielsen, Kopenhagen Fur will provide the fur studio with all the major types of skins, so that students can develop their knowledge of fur. Meanwhile, Kopenhagen Studio, Kopenhagen Fur's creative Department, will bring skin samples to the studio for students to study, analyze, and work on.
This will allow the Academy of Arts and Design of Tsinghua University to make its fur design course competitive with the world's best. Kopenhagen Fur will invite professors from the academy to visit its Copenhagen headquarters and provide some training.
The Fur Studio will be built into a platform connecting designers and enterprises. Chinese fashion companies will be invited to use the studio to work with the faculty, and to hire the young designers.
"The studio is an excellent way for Chinese and Danish fashion designers to cooperate, and a perfect platform for young Chinese designers to step onto the world stage," said Li Dangqi, president of Tsinghua University's Academy of Arts and Design.
To further demonstrate its commitment to support the academy's efforts in educating world-level designers, Kopenhagen Fur will offer scholarships worth 100,000 yuan (around 25,000 U.S. dollars)to four outstanding students every year.
Zhang Zhifeng, president of well-known Chinese fur company Ne. Tiger, said the Chinese fashion industry especially the luxury industry is growing quickly but still immature. Many local fur companies still compete by lowering prices, underestimating the value of design and innovation.
"Chinese designers should learn to combine our ancient civilization with modern fashion, and look out at the world while cherishing our own traditions," Zhang said.
Kopenhagen Fur is the world's largest auction house of fur skins, supplying 17 million mink skins a year, or 50 percent of global production. The company notched up business revenue of nearly one billion U.S. dollars last year.
Statistics show that China is already the third largest consumer of luxury goods, with sales accounting for 20 percent of the world total.
It is estimated that China will be the biggest luxury goods consumer in the world in 2015.
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