An ISU graduate student was recently honored with the Excellence in Design Award for her designs at the 2013 China Textile City Cup.

Anna Lingling Perry, graduate research assistant in apparel, events and hospitality management, traveled to Shaoxing, China, for the event, which had more than 1,800 entries and approximately 1.7 percent acceptance rate.

“Originally, I wanted to use laser cut,” Perry said about her designs. “Later, I found the laser cut only worked with some kinds of fabric. The fabric I wanted to use couldn’t use the laser cut so I used my hands to cut all the patterns.”

Perry’s work has been featured in other design competitions this year, including the 2013 Dalang Cup Women’s Apparel Design Competition in Beijing — where Perry’s designs were selected from more than 1,000 entries to be a part of 20 finalists and were then honored with an excellence award — and The First Xuexianli Chinese Cultural and Creative Homewear Design Competition in Shenzhen, China, where the designer received a second place award.

“It is a painful process,” Perry said. “I spent a lot of time finishing four dresses.”

Placing in the three Chinese design competitions was not achievable without sacrifice: Perry said she took time off from academic work to compete and spent a large amount of time working on each submission, giving her designs her full attention.

As a graduate student, Perry has been a teacher’s assistant for several courses and has worked with multiple professors.

One rewarding experience that came from the competitions, Perry said, was her experience at Iowa State, where she said she felt encouragement from multiple professors in the apparel, events and hospitality management department, including Fatma Baytar, Eulanda Sanders and Elena Karpova.

“She finishes all the assigned tasks on time, asks questions if something is not clear and is not afraid of taking risks when the task requires quick decision making,” Baytar said of Perry. “I don’t have to mention that she is a very creative individual — she successfully reflects it to her work.”

In return, Perry said she was inspired by the support.

“They told me I can work on my fashion competition first,” Perry said. “Without their help and support, I couldn’t do these kinds of things.”

Perry said she hopes to take her design skills to the classroom by becoming a professor. Knowing what she does about balancing design competitions and class work, Perry said she wants to challenge students to the best of their ability.