At the halfway point between the training project and the competition, Feel the Yarn has reached the final phase and the 20 young designers that have participated this year will “battle it out” from 4th to 6th July presenting their garments at Pitti Filati, designed and knitted using the yarn of one of the fourteen companies involved in the project. The theme of the 42 competing creations: From Material to Immaterial.

Ornella Bignami, the project’s tutor, explains, “The theme of the competition was developed to stimulate the young designers to interpret the material, the yarn and colours to make them the protagonists of their projects”. “The combination, the fusion and the contrast of yarns and fabrics, along with the quest for design, encourages the metamorphosis from a compact density to an evanescent transparency; from deep flatness to iridescent luminosity; from 3D reliefs transformed into extra-flat surfaces, to focus on a new emotional and visionary sensibility”. 

But Feel the Yarn is not only a competition for young fashion designers; in the first place it is a training and promotional tool for the stylists of the future and the province of Prato.  

Stefano Giovannelli, Director of Toscana Promozione, explains, “2011 was a positive year for foreign sales of our yarns that closed with a 13% increase compared to the previous year. A figure that confirms the ability of our companies to respond effectively to market demand for technology, style and quality.

To maintain competitiveness, it is necessary to create a veritable culture of “made in Tuscany” in the world that will allow the market to appreciate fully the distinctive features of our products.

Feel the Yarn is moving in this direction, passing on to the students involved the necessary expertise to appreciate fully our yarns, so that once they enter the working world, they will use them in their creations and, in the near future, come to share this awareness with colleagues”. 

Francesco Lucchesi, the President of CPF-Consorzio Promozione Filati comments on the project, “From our inspired insight of 2010, Feel the Yarn can now consider itself an important event in terms of training and promotion of our sector.

The project is proving to be effective in its twin objective of offering ideas and stimulation to young talent taking part and introducing our companies’ products to tomorrow’s stylists. The interaction and the exchange of experiences between the yarn manufacturers and knitwear producers is useful to both parties”.