ITS International Design Competition

I've just been contacted again about this International design competition. This year it's the eleventh edition.

The prizes are excellent, 5,000 euros for the accessories design prize and 10,000 euros for the YKK Award.

Website is here http://www.itsweb.org/jsp/en/index/index.jsp

http://vimeo.com/27026419

Fashion Fringe UK Shoe Design Competition.

This is pretty much the Footwear Designer competition of the year (the other one being the Footwear Friends Award) and has been won in the past by fantastic new shoe designers who went on to become well known and successful in their field.

This year Fashion Fringe have partnered with Bruno Frisoni, who will alos be judging the entries and the top prize is a six months apprenticeship with him, working on the Roger Vivier line in Paris. So a fantastic not to be missed opportunity.

Applications for the 2011 awards are now open. http://www.fashionfringe.co.uk/accessories/

Image courtesy of www.stylefrizz.com Bruno Frisoni for Roger Vivier

Just to add: it has been drawn to my attention that there are shoe design 'competitions' out there that may not be what they seem. Please be careful. Do not enter any competition that requests that you to pay them money to enter. Be sure of who you are dealing with. No genuine shoe design competition that I have ever seen has demanded money. The competition should be about your talent and not about how much you can afford to pay.

Shoe design Competition - Steve Maddens Sole Search

Here's another shoe design competition, this time from zappos.com in conjunciton with Steve Madden.

What I especially love about this competition is that you upload your entry directly to their website, I have really enjoyed browsing the entries this morning. This is crowdsourcing at its best, because you can be a judge and vote for the winner!

It's also pretty different in that Steve Madden chooses the 'kits' that you can work on. Kit is what we call the last and outsole - us fashion footwear designers usdually choose from existing kit in the factory, mostly because developing your own 'kit' is expensive, so if you enter this competition, it gives you a little flavour of how a commercial designer might have to work, with existing kits and a swatch book. You have to learn to be creative within these design constraints.

Link to enter is here http://www.zappos.com/sole-search

The first prize is a trip to Las Vegas and New York where you get to pitch your design to Steve Madden himself!