Winners of the Global Footwear Awards international competition

Lior Elbaz, Nitzan Rokach and Ofir Kertesz, from the Department of Jewelry and Fashion, are the winners of the international Global Footwear Awards competition. The competition gives exceptional exposure to shoe designers from around the world and awards a variety of prizes in many categories in this field.

Lior Elbaz / Inwardness

Lior Elbaz, a fourth-year student from the Department of Jewelry and Fashion, is the winner in the following categories: Fashion Sneakers - Unisex Fashion, and Special Awards - Artistic Footwear.
The project, Inwardness, created by Elbaz, deals with man's desire to retreat inward in social or personal situations and provides a response through a clothing system that "constructs" means of sitting.

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Nitzan Rokach / Liberation Under Control

Nitzan Rokah, a graduate of the Department of Jewelry and Fashion, is the winner in the following categories categories: Unisex Fashion and Artistic Footwear.
The project, Liberation Under Control, created by a Rokach as a final project, was made in the likeness of the layers within the human soul that serve as defense mechanisms. The design of the shoes communicates softness versus stiffness, and examines how one can surrender to the inner self. The use of the black lily flower as a recurring motif symbolizes modesty, devotion, and purity. The project combines soft forms of flowers and lace with spiky forms in hard material. The execution combines innovative technologies of 2D and 3D processing alongside traditional shoemaking techniques.

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Ofir Kertesz / Metamorphosis

Ofir Kertesz, a graduate of the Department of Jewelry and Fashion, is the winner in the following categories: Overall winning student in Fashion Sneakers, Special Awards - Artistic Footwear, and Fashion Sneakers - High Heels.

The project, Metamorphosis, created by Kertesz as a final project, was made as a response to a serious car accident that left her physically and mentally disabled. During the long rehabilitation, Kertesz says that she became obsessed with the question "What is freedom?" out of the feeling that she felt stripped of every element of it. She testifies that she found herself drawn to the process of metamorphosis in insects, a process at the end of which they gain the ultimate freedom - the ability to fly.
Kertesz explored the symbolism of those insects, and they became her inspiration for the final project. The project consists of a series of three pairs of shoes, which are built according to the anatomy of Kertesz’s foot and combine digital craftwork alongside handwork.

To the competition page