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Shima Seiki Europe’s student competition awards two weeks industry specialist training to two knitwear students.

Knitting Industry  |  Castle Donnington, United Kingdom

Shima Seiki Europe has named the winners of its annual student competition. The UK based company’s Student Competition is an annual event that looks to support the development of fashion and textile students on the use of industry specific technology. This year’s prize has been awarded to Zsofia Juhasz and Rachel Moody, both MA Fashion Knitwear students at Nottingham Trent University.

Both winners will receive training on the programming of Shima Seiki’s knitting machines and operation of its virtual design software at Shima Seiki Europe’s head office in Castle Donnington. 

Shima Seiki Europe’s parent company Shima Seiki Mfg. Ltd. is the market leader in the manufacture of computerised WHOLEGARMENT and flat knitting machinery.  The virtual design and development software packages APEX4 and APEXFiz enable virtually knitted and woven fabric simulations in 2D/2.5D and 3D.

This year’s competition for final year fashion and textiles students in the UK, The Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden, saw a great selection of entries from a range of universities. The students were asked to submit four digitalised design boards and written statement that highlighted their experience with CAD and why they would be a great candidate to receive the training.

“Everyone’s work was to a really high standard, and it was challenging to shortlist eight entries for our guest judges to review,” said the team at Shima Seiki Europe. The shortlisted entries were independently reviewed by industry experts from Next, one of the UK’s biggest retailers, and Skinwear, a UK knitwear design and WHOLEGARMENT production company.

As part of the process each student’s work was reviewed before online interviews were held and the shortlisted candidates were asked questions about their plans for after graduation. 

Based on their interviews and the work submitted, the judges chose Zsofia Juhasz and Rachel Moody as the winners of Shima Seiki’s 2022 Student Competition.

“It’s a great opportunity provided by our partners Shima for students. We are privileged to be on the judging panel. Everyone’s entries were amazing,” commented Karen Tickle and Tilly Dennis.

"It’s really encouraging to see talented young designers using the Shima Apex system, I believe this is the future of knitwear and look forward to seeing some innovative work from both the winners. Well done," said Claire Toms.

Both winners demonstrated how virtual sampling could be used to reduce the number of samples that are needed to be produced to develop a product. This was shown in Rachel Moody’s work by the use of the Apex Design software for knitted structure simulation and placement. Whereas Zsofia Juhasz used the Apex Design software to experiment with colour and jacquard design virtually.

Apex Design System and software

The Shima Seiki’s Apex Design System is the market leader for the development of virtually simulated fabric and is used as a development tool by manufacturers, design companies, sourcing offices and retailers throughout the world.

Many designers are already using the system to reduce their front-end design and development costs through the presentation of virtual samples and improved technical information. Because the Apex Design System allows much of the development process to be done virtually at the designer’s desk, there is less need for as many samples to be requested from the factory.

Moreover, when designs are requested, accuracy is increased, due to the enhancement of the technical data the system can produce simultaneously to designs. This technical information can be shared in formats suitable for Shima Seiki knitting machines as well as other machines on the market.

The Shima Seiki Apex Apparel Design System has applications for not only knit but also weave, yarn development, print and embroidery. In addition, all of these functions are now also available as software only via Shima’s Apex Fiz subscription, which can be downloaded to a laptop or PC. 

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