Talents Mentoring Program 2.0 Started with Nine Young Designers

The Hungarian Fashion & Design Agency launched the Talents Mentoring Program for the second time. Based on the decision by the professional jury, nine of the applicants started the program at the beginning of 2024. Graduate students and recent graduates in fashion and design will participate in webinars, workshops, and one-to-one professional consultations over the following months along the lines of a revised syllabus, then start their internships or brand development projects. The Talents Mentoring Program will conclude with the mentees' final presentations. 

The Agency created the Talents Mentoring Program in November 2022 by merging the previous fashion and design mentoring programs to offer up-to-date knowledge for young professionals in both areas in topics such as brand- and career-building, sustainability, and innovation. The mentoring program provides practical and market-oriented skills, which can increase the mentees' job prospects while calling their attention to the complexity of the industry and the diverse opportunities within it.

Based on the positive feedback received for the previous program, the Talents Mentoring Program aims to allow participants to network with other professionals. The new course outline offers participants even more personalised opportunities for career planning and building their professional careers.

The professional jury selected 9 excellent mentees from the more than 35 applicants to the program. The names of the participants interested in fashion might sound familiar since several of them have debuted on the Budapest Central European Fashion Week (BCEFW) catwalk. Henrietta Hirviniemi previously completed professional internships at the brands ABODI and TOMCSANYI. The fashion designer student has been interested in fashion design since her childhood and would like to start her own label in the future. Fanni Eperke Szabó, in addition to her undergraduate and master’s studies at MOME, broadened her knowledge and professional contacts in Belgium, Rome, and Milan. In her studies, she examined the connections between trauma and fashion, and her main inspiration is storytelling.  Erzsébet Jiang graduated from METU with a bachelor's degree in Craft Object Culture with a specialisation in costume and accessories. During her university years, she studied in France with the Erasmus program, where she mainly focused on her passion for fine arts. Valentin Szarvas, fashion designer, has been learning the profession for over 12 years, has worked at several domestic brands, and co-founded the Terike from Budapest platform focusing on emerging Hungarian designers. He has a strong vision of his own brand which he wishes to further refine in the mentoring program. Dóra Surányi has won several professional awards, including the 2023 BIG SEE Fashion Design Award for her graduation collection, and showcased her work to an international audience at Design Week Ljubljana. She wants to expand her knowledge gained in the previous Talents mentoring program with brand development skills.

All the mentees from the design side find building professional relationships crucial and want to make more new contacts during the program. Dóra Eiler was fascinated by learning about materials in elementary school, and her works were presented to the public in Japan as well as in Pécs and Budapest. As a ceramist, she focuses on the deeper dialogue between objects and their users, and she examines this topic in her thesis as well. Nikola Mrkobrad is studying for a Master of Design at MOME after studying Industrial Product and Design Engineering with a technical focus. In particular, collectables, furniture, accessories and sunglasses are some of the areas and groups of objects that he likes to work with. He considers it very important to gain practical knowledge and experience in addition to academic knowledge and university projects. Dávid Salamon chose product design as a conscious decision. He wants to apply his previous career experience in founding and managing internationally successful start-ups to building a design business. He is currently working as a freelance designer on projects for LumoConcept and the New Museum of Transport, but his goal is to establish his own brand. Balázs Szőllősi, industrial product designer and design engineer, has developed his skills in furniture design after graduating, through his own project assignments and online courses. As a designer, he believes sustainability is extremely important and aims to create lasting objects that represent aesthetics alongside functionality.

The mentees have already started the theoretical part of the program, in which they delve into brand building, communication, sales and pricing and other business-related topics at the invited experts’ workshops. Afterwards, a part of the team will complete a two-week internship with creative enterprises in partnership with the HFDA. Those who want to focus on their own brands can take part in a brand development process in this phase. The mentees will also receive personalised support in one-to-one consultations from a career and self-awareness counsellor. The Talents Mentoring Program will conclude with the participants’ presentations, in which they will give an account of the experiences gained in the program.

We will continue to keep you informed about the Talents Mentoring Program’s development on the HFDA’s website and its social media platforms.