To nurture young students to address the sustainability challenges in Hong Kong, PolyU’s School of Fashion and Textiles (SFT) collaborated with the Japanese global apparel retailer UNIQLO to launch the first “Sustainable Future Challenge Competition”. The award presentation ceremony of the competition was held this month and officiated by Prof. Wong Wai-yeung, interim dean of SFT, and Mr Ota Tomoyuki, Chief Operations Officer of UNIQLO Hong Kong.

The competition attracted over 120 students from SFT to participate. A total of 21 teams were shortlisted after the first round of the competition, and the final 10 teams were selected online to compete for first, second and third place.

The proposals of the three winning teams were creative, practical, and well thought-out in terms of material selection, technology use, design aesthetics, environmental protection effectiveness, marketing, and brand philosophy. Inspired by traditional Japanese knots, the team that came first made a series of pet cotton rope toys by recycling clothes.  

The judges found the entries highly inspirational. They also encouraged the students to continue their research and look forward to future collaboration opportunities.