The main goal of this initiative is to promote and support the young designers at the start of their careers, in particular final-year students or designers with a professional career up to a maximum of two or three years.

Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and the United Kingdom are the seven countries with participants from the clothing sector, while Italy, Portugal and the Czech Republic are the countries with candidates from the footwear sector.

Among the three dozen candidates, 21 will present proposals in the fashion field and 9 will be  focused on footwear, since each country may be represented by three designers in each area.

The proposals will bepresented through a fashion show and contestants will be evaluated by a jury composed by seven people from the fashion business. The selected candidates will also be given the opportunity to visit six factories in the north of the country.

Luis Onofre, the President of APICCAPS, the Portuguese Footwear Association commented: “The footwear industry at European level is facing issues due to its weak ability to attract young people to work on the sector. In Portugal the situation is not very different. Most Portuguese footwear companies have been focusing their efforts to attract new people, as they need to rejuvenate their workforces, with needs of staff for production, design, marketing, logistics, all areas in general. This initiative is extremely important to show young European talents from the fashion area that our industries can be excellent options for their carreers”.

The head of the Portuguese Footwear industry continued: “The Portuguese Footwear industry has been focusing on design and fashion and we always need talented skillful young people in our factories”.

This project is being managed by the Textile Intelligence Centre (Centro de Inteligência Têxtil - CENIT), and has the support of APICCAPS , ModaLisboa (Lisbon Fashion Week) and ANIVEC – the Clothing and Apparel Industries Association.