Public Relations and Ai’s Fashion Department are pleased to announce the launch of the 3rd year of the Cool vs. Cruel Fashion Design Competition, exclusively for currently enrolled Art Institutes’ students, sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). In this competition, fashion students will be challenged to create a fur-free evening wear, outwear or suit design inspired by several designers’ garments. Guidelines, entry forms and designer examples are attached. This competition’s launch and deadline align with Q1. The competition launches July 9 and deadlines on September 22. Our hope is that this competition can be incorporated into the curriculum of many fashion design classes in the upcoming quarter.
Each participating school will hold a local judging, where one first place local winner is selected to progress to the national level of the competition. In the national level of the competition, all local first place winning entries will be judged by a panel of industry professionals in New York City, to determine the grand prize award winner in the competition.
The grand prize award winner will receive and all-expenses-paid trip to New York City for a press event, in the first week of November 2007 and an all-expense-paid five day internship opportunity TBD in New York City with a designer who is involved with the Humane Society of the United States Fur-Free Campaign. Second and third place winners in the national competition will each receive a $100 gift certificate and finalists from participating schools will receive an official certificate of participation and an HSUS “Goodie” bag.
We would like to encourage participating schools, where appropriate, to host a gallery show of the designs in their school’s local competition, to help garner media attention regarding this competition.
There are two sets of guidelines for the Cool vs. Cruel Fashion Design Competition attached, the first for faculty members administering the competition which contain a list of internal target dates regarding this initiative and one for current students who would like to participate in the competition that contain only the deadline date.
Template press releases will be provided as the competition progresses for dissemination in your local market.
Currently, the entries from last year’s competition are on a traveling gallery show throughout The Art Institutes system, we plan to do the same traveling gallery show with the winning garments from the 2007 competition.
Thank you in advance for helping to make this competition a success.
Devra Pransky
Public Relations Specialist
Education Management LLC
