Internship in Italy. First impressions of the Textile Design Talents 2021 winner

Evgenia Yarygina, the winner of Textile Design Talents Solstudio Award 2021, recently returned from Italy, where she completed a two-week internship at the European Institute of IED Istituto Europeo di Design under the program "Textile Design: Trend forecast, drawing and printing".

We are well acquainted with Zhenya, because she worked in our studio for several years. Of course, they were very happy about her victory. Couldn't resist and asked to share their impressions.

A few words about yourself

Graduated from the bachelor's and master's degree of Stroganovka - Department of "Design-textiles". She started working in her specialty while studying for a master's degree – at Solstudio Textile Design. At first I was an intern, then a full-time studio employee. Later, she moved to mass-market brands as a printer, then began working as a designer of children's clothing, and now as an adult.

I learned about the contest while working in the studio, I really wanted to participate right away, because the prizes were very cool every year, but employees are forbidden to participate. A couple of years after leaving the studio, I decided to participate, but first of all, to do something creative and unrelated to work, and I didn't want to draw "on the table", I remembered about the competition and applied almost on the last day of the competition.

About the internship

The first impressions were from the group – there were 9 of us (2nd from Russia, 3rd from America, 1st from Brazil, Egypt, France and Germany). An incredibly cool experience of interacting with colleagues from different countries. And this is something I didn't think about at all when I was preparing for the internship. The internship itself combined a lot of theory and several trips to Italian design and production studios. I liked the part with the trips very much, remembered and impressed: I saw with my own eyes all the stages of creating prints for luxury brands and could not believe that these were not some fakes that often happen at factories in China and Uzbekistan, but the very originals that are then sold in boutiques. The theoretical part was already familiar to me, thanks to Stroganov and work experience, but it was nice to refresh my knowledge and understand that Italian education in this field has a lot in common with ours.

About the experience gained and far-reaching plans

The internship gave me a huge experience of communicating with colleagues from other countries, a lot of inspiration and an understanding of how things work in other countries in the field of textile design.
I am sure that the experience gained from the internship will be useful to me in the development of my future career in the field of textile design, where I plan to stay for the time being. Thank you very much for this opportunity to the organizers of the competition and partners: the European Institute IED Istituto Europeo di Design and SOYUZLEGPROM.