Taku Yhim Named Supima Design Competition 2022 Winner
Sept. 10 marked a major milestone for the Supima Design Competition, which celebrated its 15-year anniversary on Saturday.
During the runway show design competition, which features eight contestants from the top design schools across the country, eight finalists in the competition each showed five looks using five types of Supima fabric (shirting, twill, denim, jersey and velveteen). Year after year, the event gives recent graduates the opportunity to gain recognition and visibility in a forum that introduces emerging designers to the industry.
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This year’s winner, Parsons School of Design, The New School alum, Taku Yhim, was also awarded $10,000. Yhim’s collection is influenced by Japanese Samurai armor. His focus, he said, is “on incorporeality as inspiration and observes existing beings related to history, events, art and external inspiration.”
This year’s event was hosted by Christian Siriano and Coco Rocha. The competition’s elite panel of judges also included Ann Caruso, Avril Graham, Cipriana Quann, Claire Thomson–Jonville, Edward Barsamian, Fern Mallis, Freya Drohan, Godfrey Deeny, Jeffrey Taylor (2016 SDC winner), Jerome Lamaar, Kelly Augustine, Luke Meagher, Mickey Boardman, Shibon Kennedy, Tyler McCall and WWD’s Lisa Lockwood.
For the eighth year, Bibhu Mohapatra served as a mentor to the finalists to provide insights, support and advice to each contestant.
Alongside Yhim, the 2022 finalists included Candice Tianyu from Academy of Arts University, Chan Kyoo Hwang from Drexel University, Fabian Renteria from Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, Bryan Barrientos from Fashion Institute of Technology, Antonia Bruno from Kent State University, Hu Jun Yi from Rhode Island School of Design and Michelle Sumin Suh from School of Art Institute of Chicago.
Following the show, Siriano told WWD he “thought [the show] was amazing. The clothes are really cool, really interesting and innovative. It’s nice to see that full creativity. There were no rules, it didn’t have to be wearable, that didn’t matter and that was nice to see.”
Rocha agreed saying that while there is a tendency to feel as though New York Fashion Week can be very commercialized, here the designers can “do whatever they want and play around.”
Both Siriano and Rocha recognized that these designers are showing collections at fashion week for the first time saying that the collections were “impressive for people just coming out of school and showing for the first time it was amazing. A competition like this is great to do because you’ve seen what other young talent is doing and it helps push you and push your brand.”
Having now shown as New York Fashion Week, Siriano said to the competitors, “now it’s just about figuring out what your brand is and how you market it, how you build it as a business. Now [you can] be creative and that’s always exciting, but how do you make it part of a commerce world, if that’s what you want. And if you want to be an artist, that’s great too.”
