We continue to publish a series of articles to share the best experiences of organizations, which are the support network behind every finalists on the catwalk of IYDC. The current article introduces ZIPhouse - a center of excellence and acceleration in design and technologies in the apparel and footwear industry for young designers, fashion professionals and entrepreneurs in Moldova. 

The innovative platform of ZIPhouse is based on four major pillars. 

Communication: it creates opportunities for networking and connects young talents and professionals, who share the similar passion for fashion, design and entrepreneurship.
Co-working: it offers the creative environment and shared workspace with resources and production equipment, where designers could collaborate and transform their ideas into reality.
Education: it produces advanced educational content, facilitating the accumulation and development of professional knowledge, skills and competences. 
Acceleration: it runs acceleration programs for young talents and start-ups, inspiring and supporting innovations. 

The young professionals are experiencing the lack of specialized courses, trainings, professional events, as well as facing the challenging of managing and budgeting efficient promotions and attracting investments. Responding to those needs of the growing fashion industry in Moldova, ZIPHouse provides advanced knowledges through fashion design courses and creates industry network by organizing fashion events, conferences and competitions. Also ZIPhouse social media resources are actively supporting and promoting young designers, their brands and fashion start-ups.

One of the ZIPHouse innovative projects is Fashion Hackathon: a 24 hour challenge with 25 participants, which are randomly divided into 5 teams and have a task to create an unique outfit inspired by an established theme in a record time. The participants are young designers, students and graduates who want to challenge themselves and to generate creativity against the clock. The event is ended up with a catwalk and an outfit judging, all teams being awarded.

Young designers are constantly looking for opportunities to reach their potential clients, to interact with them, to establish bonds and to present their new brands and products in non-conventional environment. ZIPhouse team are creating a perfect frame for them via Fashion Pop Up Shop Events, Fashion Cappuccino, Sparkling Party and other events, which are creating vibrant fashion communities.

Z Generation Young Designers Competition is a national contest which reveals new talents in the field of fashion design and serves as a starting point for young designers. The competition is aimed at identifying, encouraging and promotive talents who are striving to succeed in the field of apparel design, both locally and internationally.
The contest has already three editions, gathering almost 30 participants every year. The whole contest lasts about 4 months, while all contestants have a mentoring with an international fashion expert, such as Stela Arrion (London, UK, the list of companies she worked include Selfridges, Conde Nast Publications, Studio McQueen Couture, Wella International, The Royal Ballet and The University of the Arts London).

The Contest ends with Catwalks show and Awarding Event. Two best designers, chosen through this contest, are honored to represent the young talents from Moldova at the annual International Young Designers Contests.  

ZIP Fashion Photography Contest is a competition based on a challenge for photography artists who specialize in fashion photography or for those who intend to specialize in this field. The challenge itself is to achieve artistic concepts and a photo for 2 outfits (one from a young designer and one from a local brand, in only 2 days).Photographers will recive randomly the outfits and the entire concept will be made without a stylist or a designer`s help.

Fashion Conference, organized by ZIPHouse annually, is the key landmark event for the Moldovan fashion industry. During the Conference new trends and innovative concepts, emerging technologies and out of the box business solutions are presented and introduced to wide array of attendees. 
The conference is a perfect place to upgrade the knowledge, to open the mind and boost entrepreneur`s aspirations in the fashion industry through interactions with local entrepreneurs and international experts and it offers tremendous networking opportunities.

Every year, the conference brings together international speakers from UK, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Ukraine, etc. In previous years the speakers of the Conference were:

Laurenti Arnault  (United Kingdom) - CEO of WTVOX Magazine and the Co-founding CEO of Wardrobe of Tomorrow;
Geta Rasciuc Gka (Netherlands) - founder of Babymoon; 
Amnon Shalev (Israel) - Vice President sales at Optitex and the founder and CEO of virtuality.fashion Ltd.;
Anna Shoykhet (Israel) - worked in world leading CAD companies such as Optitex and Lectra;
Ricardo O' Nascimento (Italy) - founder of POPKALAB;
Giovanni Ottonello (Italy) - Art Director of IED-Istituto Europeo di Design;
Philippe Pourhashemi (Belgium) - fashion coach, journalist, stylist and co-founder of the Swiss Fashion Association;
Iana Buchko (Ukraine) - owner of BUSY Agency.

Moldova in Fashion Conference is an annual event that takes places every autumn.

The contest is organized by the Ukrainian Fashion Council with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation. IED - Istituto Europeo di Design is the IYDC partner, award fund contributor and co-organizer of the online Fashion Visual Art Residence.