ITS, A NEW HOUSE: Italy’s International Talent Support design contest — also known as ITS — has found a new home.
Named ITS Arcademy, the new space will house the organization’s headquarters and offices, as well as the remarkable ITS Creative Archive, which features outfits, accessories and talents’ portfolios, gathered from the talent scouting contest’s past 16 editions.
The archive, which features items from Balenciaga’s Demna Gvasalia, Mark Fast, Peter Pilotto and Richard Quinn, among other designers, currently occupies a small attic inside an 18th-century palazzo in the center of Trieste, Italy, where ITS is based.
In addition, ITS Arcademy — a name merging archive and academy — will host workshops, educational and training activities involving former finalists, winners and jurors.
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“The talents we bring to Trieste will be coming back as accomplished professionals to share the depths of their soul in a land that has always been, historically, a place for exchanging and sharing. New talents, new professionals will be allowed to blossom, nurturing the sensibility and receptiveness of this territory,” explained ITS founder and director Barbara Franchin, who had already hinted at the project last June during the 2018 edition of the contest.
Housed inside the building occupied by Fondazione CRTrieste — a local institution aimed at promoting the economic, social and cultural scene of the city — the new headquarters, covering 7,000 square feet, will be fully unveiled in 2020.
The foundation’s president Tiziana Benussi expressed her enthusiasm to keep supporting ITS with even more tangible efforts. “These spaces may in the future become a place where the Italian know-how will be expressed at its best, becoming a gym for young talents,” she noted.
The next edition of the talent scouting competition, comprising a fashion show and the unveiling of the winner, will be held in the city on July 12. For this edition, applicants will be tasked to develop “sincerely true” collections, sticking to their own vision.
Founded in 2002, the contest is backed by a range of partners including the Italian fashion chamber and Pitti Immagine, as well as companies such as OTB Group, Swatch, Illy and Allianz.
In particular, OTB’s founder and chairman Renzo Rosso — one of the earliest supporters of the contest — said in a statement “having been part of ITS for the last 17 years, we feel part of a real family. A family of talented young creative minds from all over the world whom we have the luck to meet first hand, to be inspired by, to mentor and to give a chance in this industry and in life. I will never stop urging them to be brave, to think out of the box, to innovate and to move us all forward. The future of fashion passes by them.”