Recently, the 28th Conference of the International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes (IFFTI) completed its leadership transition. Professor Tao Hui, Dean of the School of Fashion at Wuhan Textile University, was elected to the new Executive Committee. This marks WTU's entry into the core governance circle of global fashion higher education and further enhances the university's international voice and influence.
Professor Tao has been deeply engaged in international fashion education for many years and has achieved substantial results. A visiting scholar at the University of Manchester, she is the course leader for the national quality resource-sharing course Fashion Structure Design and the project leader for the national first-class undergraduate program in Fashion and Apparel Design. She has also been invited many times to deliver keynote presentations at IFFTI conferences and other international academic meetings, sharing research outcomes under such titles as How to Design Inclusive Products Based on Sustainable Thinking and Exploring the Development of a Sustainable Fashion Education System Based on Cross-Cultural Thinking. She developed a sustainable design model described as "One Body, Two Wings, Eight steps" has led multiple provincial- and ministerial-level teaching and research projects, and has won numerous honors, including first and second prizes for provincial teaching achievements and first and second prizes in the teaching achievement awards of the China National Textile and Apparel Council. She was also invited to serve as a judge for the 14th U.S. Global Fashion Design Competition. Through this work, she has actively promoted the integration and innovative dissemination of Chinese and international fashion education concepts, building strong industry influence and rich experience in international organizational work.
As one of the most comprehensive and prestigious international organizations in global fashion education, IFFTI was founded on October 14, 1999. It now brings together 58 institutional members across 23 countries and regions, including leading fashion and art institutions such as the Fashion Institute of Technology and London College of Fashion. Its core mission is to promote education and research in fashion design, technology, business, and related fields; integrate the resources of member institutions worldwide; build high-level platforms for academic exchange and cooperation; advance the internationalization of the fashion industry; support innovative development in global fashion education and higher-quality talent cultivation; and inject momentum into the sustainable development of the global fashion industry.
Since joining IFFTI in 2017, the School of Fashion, Wuhan Textile University has participated deeply in the alliance's academic seminars, faculty exchanges, joint competition development, and other activities. Professor Tao Hui previously served as a member of the alliance's Education Subcommittee and was entrusted by the IFFTI Organizing Committee to lead the Fashion Narrative workshop, where she engaged in in-depth exchanges with fashion experts from many countries. Through this platform, the School of Fashion has achieved notable results in academic exchange, talent cultivation, and faculty development. It cooperated with Bunka Gakuen University in Japan to launch an undergraduate education program in Fashion and Apparel Design, cultivating many fashion design talents with an international outlook. It carried out the China-UK Fashion and Apparel Art Exchange Project with the University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom, in which Chinese and British students jointly created sustainable fashion designs in a cross-cultural context and designed a series of clothing works that combined the cultural characteristics of both countries. It has also worked closely with Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom to jointly deliver sustainable design courses, forming a distinctive international joint-teaching model. The School of Fashion regularly organizes faculty members and students in fashion-related programs to participate in international academic forums such as IFFTI and in global fashion design competitions. It has successfully hosted three International Conferences on Sustainable Fashion Development, carried out international joint teaching in fashion programs for many consecutive years, and offered distinctive courses including Sustainable Fashion Design and International Fashion Trends. Its academic influence in the field of international fashion and apparel continues to rise.
This election represents strong recognition by the international community of the university's educational strength and disciplinary level. Looking ahead, the School of Fashion at Wuhan Textile University will take Professor Tao Hui's election as an opportunity and use IFFTI's high-level platform to improve the quality and effectiveness of its international development. The School of Fashion will participate deeply in global fashion education governance and communicate Chinese concepts of fashion education; deepen cooperation with the world's leading fashion institutions and build bridges for China-foreign academic and talent exchange; focus on key research areas, improve its curriculum system, innovate training models, and build an international faculty team; use the platform to disseminate Chinese clothing culture and tell China's fashion stories well; benchmark itself against international first-class standards, optimize its discipline system, support the university's “Double First-Class” construction, build a highland for fashion education, and contribute to global fashion education and the international development of China's textile and apparel industry.
