National Winner Announced for Inaugural NEXTILE: Soy in Textiles Design Challenge
Students Across the Country Competed to Create the Next Great Innovation in Soy-Based Textiles; Winner Chosen for a Moth Designed Textile
ST. LOUIS, Mo., March 26, 2024 /3BL/ - Today U.S. Soy announced the national innovative winner of the NEXTILE: The Soy in Textiles Design Challenge. In its inaugural year, the NEXTILE Design Challenge invited design students across the country to leverage their creative and problem-solving skills to produce the next sustainable innovation in textile design. The catch? Students must create their products using one versatile ingredient — soybeans. Each participating individual or team received a design kit including seven sustainable, soy-based materials: soy thread, soy leather, soy French Terry, organic pigment and other soy products. Project submissions leveraged one or more of these ingredients to produce new textile threads, dyes, paints, designs and more.
U.S. Soy has long been a key ingredient for product innovation, going all the way back to Henry Ford who used soy-based paints, textile materials and plastics for automobile design. And today, U.S. Soy is used in more than 1,000 products on the market — from tires and shoes to fabrics and artificial grass. As a renewable crop grown on U.S. farms, and replenishing the soil annually with each growing season, soy is an important frontier for biobased products.
We are proud to announce the national winner is Kasandra Wright from University of Arkansas, for her stunning moth design textile sample, symbolizing transformation, survival and new beginnings.
“Throughout this experience, I learned about the importance of what soy-based products can provide in the apparel and textile industry,” Wright said. “Soy fiber has an excellent drape and is a beautiful alternative to protein fibers as a sustainable material for apparel.”
As the winner, Wright will receive a $1,000 scholarship.
“I was very impressed with the whole thought process of Kasandra’s end product using the soy-based material that was provided,” said Kathryn Phillips, chief curator at Springs Creative Product Group who served as a judge of the competition. “I truly believe this soy-based textile design has a broader commercial appeal in apparel as well as home products.”
The judging panel was so impressed with the competitors, they elected to award a $500 scholarship to the second-place runner-up, Anna Stuffelbeam of North Carolina State University for her foliage appliqué sample inspired by the plants that made up her fabric’s materials — soy, pomegranate and madder.
The national winner was chosen from a pool of students who advanced past the first round of judging, which included students from six schools across the country. Judges from Levander Design, Springs Creative Products Group, United Soybean Board and Modern Meadow chose the winner and runner-up.
“It’s been incredible to see how our soybeans come to life in the creative hands of these talented students, especially Kasandra and Anna,” said Carla Schultz, Michigan soybean farmer and United Soybean Board director who served as a judge of the competition. “I’m so impressed with their designs — they were artful, progressive and captivating. I’m beyond excited by the creative thinking we saw in the inaugural NEXTILE Challenge. I’m excited for the future of each competitor who participated and for the future of soy.”
U.S. soybean farmers and industry partners consistently push the limits of innovation to discover and deliver solutions to the biggest challenges our world faces, such as food security and climate change. NEXTILE was created to put sustainable soy materials into the hands of the brightest young minds in design to create the next generation of eco-friendly textile solutions.
Learn more about NEXTILE, the participating schools and students, and the next round of U.S. Soy-based sustainable innovation at www.ussoy.org/nextile.
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About U.S. Soy
Representing the positive global human impact of soy grown in the United States, the U.S. Soy brand exists to carry forward soy’s promise to transform global nutrition, provide climate-forward solutions, and support progress for people and their communities. U.S. Soy is powered by the innovation of the industry; the unsurpassed quality, reliability and sustainability of the soybeans grown by our farming families who invest through checkoff dollars; and the commitment of the organizations that raise awareness, build demand, develop new markets and discover new uses for soy and soy products. U.S. Soy envisions a world where soy is a fundamental ingredient in solving the broad challenges of humanity. To learn more about U.S. Soy visit ussoy.org.
