South Holland, Netherlands Sep 21, 2022 (Issuewire.com) - Wenzhou has a long cultural heritage in shoemaking, and leather shoes have been produced as early as the Southern Song Dynasty. After the reform and opening up, Wenzhou's shoemaking industry developed rapidly. At present, it has become one of the few hundreds of billions of industrial clusters in China. There are more than 5,000 manufacturing enterprises, with more than 500,000 employees and an annual output of footwear. The finished product exceeds 1.2 billion pairs, which plays a pivotal role in China's shoe industry.

In December of 2022, China's First "Red Boots Award" International Footwear Design Competition organized by Wenzhou city, in collaboration with its global strategic partners - LINKER INTERNATIONAL, has announced an official call for entries. The First "Red Boots Award" China International Footwear Design Competition aims to create the "Red Dot Award" in the field of footwear design in Global and become the most authoritative and influential top-level event in the global footwear industry. The competition set up A Million RMB (288,000 USD) Prize Pool and invites participants from all over the world. Independent fashion designers, designer studios, and designer enterprises at home and abroad, as well as students of leather products, art design, and industrial design-related colleges and universities, can apply for the competition.

The competition is from October to December, the schedule of which includes the Collection of works, a Preliminary contest, a Semifinal, and a Final. The finals and series of events will carry out activities such as the finals roadshow, the award ceremony, the international footwear industry development summit forum, the national tour exhibition, the express interview, and so on. The competition will invite experts and scholars, industry leaders, entrepreneurs, and fashion buyers from developed countries to explore the new ecology of fashion trends in the global footwear industry, draw a new blueprint for the development of the global footwear industry, and promote the transformation and upgrading of the global footwear industry.

Design Themes:

Theme 1: New Generation of Fashion

Under the impact of multiculturalism and the interweaving of different popular elements, a new generation of fashionable youth who growing up in the rapidly developing science and technology, economy, and strong artistic atmosphere generate extremely distinctive personalities, tastes, and trendy attitudes. Theme 1 mainly highlights the ordinary, fashion personality design expression of the fashionable youth in a new era.

Theme 2: Chinese style

This theme encourages designers to focus on "Chinese style" and creatively express Chinese trendy in their design works, by applying and excavating the cultural custom, art treasures, craft skills, history stories, and other Chinese traditional cultures, making Chinese style and culture known to people all around the world. In addition to the long-established Chinese national culture, the local culture of Wenzhou City, the "Ouyue" culture, can also be highlighted under this theme.

Theme 3: Future of the meta-universe

Under this theme, designers can express their wild imagination and fantasy of metaverse and future exploration, by making the technology, intelligent and advanced design materials, skills, and concept blend into the details of the design.

Category of Works:

Combining workability, personal interests, and strengths, participants are required to choose the appropriate theme and design a series of 3 works. The entries in the competition are divided into two categories:

Men's shoes:        Formal Wear     Leisure     Boots

Women's shoes:     Formal Wear     Leisure     Boots

Competition Mode

Participants and individuals can submit multiple pieces of work according to the design theme. The specialist selection committee will rate the works and select a number of excellent original footwear design talents. Designers may choose a category (e.g., Formal Wear, Leisure, or Boots) from men's or women's shoes and design a series of products in the same style according to their own interests and merits, or design a series of 3 styles concerning one of the three design themes. For example men's shoes - casual - new generation of fashion - design 3 styles of series products (i.e. a set of products should meet the casual category and 3 styles of men's shoes in accordance with the theme of a new generation of fashion).

Entry Requirements:

• Designer Bio(required) - Submit before October 5

The content is in Chinese or English, including photo, name, basic information, contact information, honors & achievements(optional), etc.

• Design Presentation Drawings(required) - Submit before October 5

At this stage, we only require Standard Shoes design sketch with a medial view and 1 colorway, and the design category can be chosen from one of them: formal, leisure, or boots. The work should be original, and never published. The target audience is the young generation. The design output should be at size 295mmx420mm (A3), format JPG, resolution 120dpi. The content is in English. The main layout, reflects the design theme, design dimensions, materials description, and design inspiration.

Awards Setting:

1 Red Boots Supreme Award: 72,000 $

4 Red Boots Grand Awards: 28,800 $

10 Red Boots Beauty Awards: 14,400 $

20 Red Boots New Talent Awards: 7,200 $

Venture Project Support:

Winners within one year of starting an enterprise or setting up an R & D center in Wenzhou will be granted rent-free space and 288k$ as start-up funding.

Transportation Subsidy:

430 $ and 1000 $ each from domestic and overseas locations (one entry only).

How to Apply:

https://www.f6s.com/redboots-award/about

Attention:

• Entries must be original, not published in any form or known to the public in any way.
• Entries must not display working organization or personal information.
• The number of signed designers for the same work shall not exceed 3 persons.

Related Conventions:

• The organizing committee of the competition has the right to publicize, publish, exhibit, compile, and disseminate entries, etc., without paying any fees for copyrights to the contestants.
• The copyright of the design belongs to the named authors, and the entrants are not allowed to provide infringing works.
• All entries will receive a copyright certificate recognized by the China Patent Office for free.
• The organizing committee of the competition is not obliged to conduct a substantive review of the ownership and intellectual property rights involved in the entries.
• All direct or indirect claims and legal liabilities arising from the entry provided by any entrant infringing or being accused of infringing intellectual property rights, including but not limited to patent rights, trademark rights, design copyrights, ownership rights, and other rights, shall be subject to participants are responsible for their own responsibility and have nothing to do with the competition organizing committee.
• All winning works will be retained by the organizing committee for exhibition display.
• If the damage or loss of entry due to non-human factors is an uncontrollable factor the organizing committee of the competition will not be jointly and severally liable.
• If there is any discrepancy with other promotional materials of the competition, this document shall prevail.
• The final interpretation right of the competition belongs to the organizing committee.

Competition Sponsors:

Guided by: China Leather Association, Wenzhou Municipal People's Government,

Organizers: Zhejiang Provincial Leather Association, Wenzhou Lucheng People's Government.

Co-organizer: Wenzhou Municipal Committee Talent Office, Wenzhou Municipal Bureau of Economic and Information Technology, Wenzhou Investment Promotion Bureau

Execution Unit: Wenzhou Shoe Leather Industry Research Institute, Wenzhou Shoe Leather Industry Association, Guangdong Melody Group Limited, Zhejiang Zhongyin Fashion Co., China footwear capital Designer (Engineer) Collaborative Innovation Center, Beijing Linker Culture Communication Co., Ltd.

Global Strategic Partners: Linker International

Conference Contact:

support@redbootaward.com