A unique partnership will leverage the expertise of fashion icon Jimmy Choo’s new fashion academy, as his students design a new staff uniform.
His world-renowned JCA I London Fashion Academy has launched a competition to create a bold design, that will give Oxford Saïd a sleek, new look across its campuses. They are also creating a new student clothing line for the School. The winning students will be announced in April, with the new uniform and student garments rolled out later this year.
The winners will be given a place on the new Oxford Venture Series – a series of three, six-to-eight-week online programmes with tutor support and live lessons. The series aims to help new entrepreneurs, start-ups, scale-ups and small and medium enterprises, conceptualise and launch new business ideas or scale existing ones.
The collaboration will also include a series of joint experiences and events, among them an audience with Professor Jimmy Choo and a talk hosted by Maria Zubeldia, Director of the Entrepreneurship Centre at Oxford Saïd.
Maria said: 'Jimmy Choo is an incredible role model for our students, given his extraordinary success as an entrepreneur. Between our two world leading institutions we have an exceptional depth of expertise and knowledge and I look forward to seeing where this exciting collaboration takes us. I’m also delighted to see future fashion industry leaders compete to design a new uniform for our professional service colleagues, and a clothing line for our students, to give us a bold new look across our School.'
Ha Smith, JCA Director, said: 'It's a privilege to be collaborating with such a prestigious business organisation such as Oxford Saïd to acknowledge the unique entrepreneurial career pathway that we offer and encourage at The JCA I London Fashion Academy. It's an honour for us to take on the challenge to redesign their corporate uniform rebrand, re-imagining a garment process that has been in place for many years.'
With the partnership, JCA’s undergraduate and postgraduate learners will compete to take on the final design of Oxford Saïd uniforms and student clothing. Undergraduates will work in pairs to create their submissions as part of a project for the term, and postgraduate students will have the option to work in pairs or individually. The projects will be presented to the University of Oxford on 4 April and the winners will be announced on 27 April at an award ceremony in Oxford. JCA competition entrants will also have a special tour of the renowned Ashmolean in Oxford, learning about the collection of textiles, fashion and fabrics housed in the museum. The unveiling of the uniforms will take place at a Fashion Show at Oxford Saïd later this year.
The Oxford Venture Series is comprised of Venture Creation, Venture Finance and Digital Marketing: Disruptive Strategy. It covers launching new business ideas or scaling existing ones; the different types of entrepreneurial finance available as ventures evolve and grow; and the existing, new and emerging channels available regarding market access.