Closing ceremony for the WORTH project

An event was held on Wednesday November 25th at the Joseph Braque Gallery in Paris to celebrate the end of the Worth Project, which aims at triggering innovation in European creative industries.

Initiated and supported by the European Commission, the Worth Pilot Project was launched in 2013 by IFM, in partnership with the London College of Fashion, the Italian representative body for creative SMEs (CNA/Federmoda) and Euratex, the European Federation of textile industries.

Funded by the European Commission to develop competitiveness in small and medium creative businesses, the Worth project specialises in cross border designer and manufacturer collaborations, aiming to innovate new fashion and lifestyle products in order to maximise assets derived from the resource and skills base of Europe.

With an express aim of creating innovative product to prototype stage, the result is 34 unique European enterprising partnerships managed jointly by IFM and London College of Fashion's Centre for Fashion Enterprise: fusions of tradition and invention; craft and technology; hand and machine; history and modernisation across Eyewear, Fashion, Footwear, Fur, Furniture, Jewellery, Leather and Textiles.

WORTH facilitates connections between specialist organisations, designers and manufacturers across the regions to access and cross fertilise the broad range of skills and know-how that define Europe as a high-level fashion industry resource base.

The name of the WORTH project is a tribute to designer Charles F. Worth – a pioneer of Haute couture who in 1858 created the first Couture House in Paris, in partnership with Otto Bobergh from Sweden. His huge success was a first step towards a Europe of talent which appears today as the main key to our continent's economic achievements.