‘Real Leather.Stay Different.’ student design competition announces 2024 finalists

The Leather and Hide Council of America has announced the four finalists of its ‘Real.Leather.Stay.Different.’ international student design competition which aims to celebrate leather as a material and innovation in leather design by empowering student creators from around the world.

Each of the four selected finalists is the winner of one of the competition categories, which are: Apparel, Footwear, Accessories and People’s Choice.

Designer Roscha Dinler from the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany has been named the winner in the footwear category, Mor Elfassy from Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art in Israel the Apparel category winner, and designer Bingbing Bai, a PhD student at Kingston School of Art has won in the accessories category.

‘Real.Leather.Stay.Different.’ names finalists of student design competition 2024

US creator Josslyn Shi, a student at the California College of the Arts has been chosen by the public in the People’s Choice category.

The four young designers will present their leather designs to a jury of industry professionals consisting of Hugo Boss’ Christopher Koerber, Anna Melegh from Christian Louboutin, fashion education consultant Adrien Yakimov Roberts, celebrity stylist Mike Adler, and Matteo Mastrotto, CEO at Rino Mastrotto.

This year’s awards ceremony for the Real.Leather.Stay.Different. Design competition will take place on the evening of Monday, September 23 at the US embassy in London where the 2024 overall winner will be announced.