Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology (BIFT) is China’s premiere educational facility associated with fashion, mainly specializing in art and technology. With defining characteristics, BIFT is a full-time higher education institution where art, technology, economics, management and other convergent disciplines can successfully interact. Founded in 1959, the institute was first affiliated with the Ministry of Textiles. Then it evolved into a supervisory institution under the City of Beijing in 1998.
In recent years, the institute’s motto has been “innovation paves the way for realistic and creative applications in education”, and this visionary administrative philosophy gives the institute its special academic flavor. BIFT combines art education and engineering education with sound business administration, integrates ethnic fashion culture with contemporary design philosophy, and realizes theory in practice. The institute, which has 7000 students and 700 academic staff, is now made up of five schools (School of Clothing Art and Business, School of Art and Design, School of Materials Science and Engineering, School of Business, and School of Industrial Design and Information Engineering); two departments (Foreign Language Department and the Department of Plastic Arts); two teaching divisions (Division of Social Science and Division of Basic Courses); an educational center (Center for Computer Science Teaching); an International College; a School f Continuing Education; a Department of Higher Vocational Education and a Graduate School. There are 20 basic undergraduate specializations, 1 first-grade master discipline, 11 second-grade master disciplines, 1 second-Bachelor’s degree specialization and 4 double-major specializations in BIFT. The institution has 1 Beijing Key Construction First-grade Discipline (Textile Science and Engineering), 3 Beijing Key Construction Second-grade Disciplines (Design Art, Art Studies and Materials Science), 3 city-level scientific research institutes (Beijing City Fashion Materials R & D and Evaluation Laboratory, Capital Fashion Culture and Apparel Industry Research Site, Clothing Technological Transfer Center – Beijing Division) and an Ethnic Costume Museum, which is one of the ten best specialized museums in China.
The institute continues to stress basic undergraduate education and actively develop graduate, international and continuing education programs to form a unified multi-level organizational structure. Especially, since the Ministry of Education implemented Higher Education Quality Project, the institute has been firmly adhering to the Scientific Concept of Development, continuously furthering reform in education and teaching, and steadily promoting its all-round capacity of running the institute and its social influence as well. At present, BIFT has one national characteristic specialty (Art Design); four Beijing characteristic specialties (Art Design, Fashion Design and Engineering, Polymer Material and Engineering and Industrial Design); two Beijing exquisite courses (Fashion Art Design and Chinese Clothing History); six Beijing exquisite textbooks of higher education(Fashion Art Design, Pattern Making Theory and Technology - men’s and women’s etc.); two Beijing excellent teaching teams (the teaching team of the combination of art in textile design and industry in textile materials, and the teaching team of Fashion Design and Marketing Management); two Beijing Teaching Masters; one Beijing Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center (Fashion Materials and Engineering Experimental Teaching Center); and one Beijing Off-campus Talents Cultivation Base (BIFT•Aimer Off-campus Talents Cultivation Base for Fashion Specialties). The academic staff members of BIFT have finished the New Century Higher Education Teaching Reform Project, an English teaching reform project of the Ministry of Education and other teaching reform projects of Beijing, and have won a number of excellent teaching achievements awards at national, ministerial and city levels. In addition, they have conducted 19 National Planning Textbooks and published 33 textbooks of clothing, painting and art series, of which such characteristic textbooks as Clothing Plate Making have been reprinted many times and broadly used by similar specialties in other colleges and universities around China.
Our institute actively serves the function of promoting economic and social development. Since the 10th 5-year plan, our institute has undertaken 806 national-level, provincial-level, and other science and research projects, and has achieved 10 national-level and provincial-level awards. For three consecutive years (2004-2006) there was one project awarded National Science Progress Level 2 status. Among these, the program of PA6/PE Mixed Island Super-thin Fiber and Artificial Skin Development and Industrialization Research was successfully completed and meeting all standards for world-class development. In the collection for the 2008 Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the Creative Solutions, organized by the Beijing Olympic Committee, our Fashion Design Project was judged to be an excellent activity. The five kinds of clothing for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Special Olympic Games (for staff, volunteers, and technical personnel, Olympic torch bearers, and Chinese medal winners) are designed by our institute. Our institute also participated in designing the space suits for the astronauts in Shenzhou Seven Spacecraft, including the design of the patterns on the astronauts’ sleeping bags, the color scheme of the space suits and the development of their shoes to be worn in the Spacecraft. Among the three highest ranked National Science Award programs (National Nature science Prize, National Technical Invention Prize, and National Science Technical Improvement Prize) for 2004, 2005 and 2006, contended by national Universities at the Development Center of the Ministry of Education, our institute was rated 36th, 38th, and 40th.
BIFT expends effort to training realistic, professional, and talented individuals with firm theoretical foundations, wide knowledge, strong practical and creative abilities, and sound physical and mental health. In the last three years, non-art majors have received 213 awards, including the Silver Prize of the National University Students Entrepreneur Competition; the Special Award of Beijing Challenge Cup University Extracurricular Works Competition; the Special Award of Physics Contest; the Special Award of Beijing University Mathematics Contest, as well as other prestigious awards. The art majors have earned 592 national and international competition awards, including the Gold and Silver Prizes of the Hanbo Cup International Young Designers’ Works Competition; the Gold Prize of the 2006 Dalian Cup China Youth Fashion Design and Chinese International Design Invitational Competition; the Gold Prize of UNESCO’s “Elegant China”Fshion Design Competition; the Third Place Prize of the 53th Miss World beauty pageant; the top prize winner of Daibils China Jewelry Design Competition; the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Prizes f the 2006 CCTV Fashion China Jewelry Design Competition’s Diamond Team; and many other important awards. In addition, among the 44 works that participated in the 2007 international Diamond HRD Competition, eight entered works were from China and six of those originated from Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, for this, the Princess of Belgium personally came to our Institute to host the Awards Ceremony in China.
Since our institute was founded 50 years ago, we have supplied 20,000 graduates for our society, and many of them have become leaders in the clothing industry. During the last several years, the employment rate of graduates who obtained jobs at their first attempt has maintained above 90%. Another survey on graduate quality implied that employers give our graduates high marks for quality. Beijing City has presented our institute with the Contribution College Award, the Teaching Contribution to the Construction of Fashion City Award and the Special Contribution to the construction of the Fashion City of Beijing Award respectively in 2005, 2007 and 2008.
BIFT insists on the spirit of rigor, diligence, realism, and creativity and is developing into a Talented Designers Training Center of the Capital Fashion Industry, a Clothing Science and Technology Research and Development Center, and a center of Fashion Culture Communication. The institute also constantly contributes to actively developing our country into the strongest in textiles and clothing.

Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology (BIFT) organize the F.I.V.E. screening as follow:
Preceded by a talk by David Cheung, artist and curator, the full screening of F.I.V.E. project.

The screening will have place on 2014-04-02 at:

New Media Art Department / Academy of Art & Design Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology (BIFT) Chaoyang District, Beijing, China 2:30 - 4:00 Pm