Stray threads, 1mm margins: young Korean competitors take on the world stage

At the fashion design arena of the WorldSkills Competition in Shanghai on Friday, Choi Bo-ran layered a white floral embroidery fabric over a pale green base cloth. As the sewing machine hummed, she guided the fabric with both hands, making small adjustments to the angle with each pass. When the stitching was done, she trimmed the loose threads with scissors. On the workbench beside her sat a South Korean flag covered in handwritten messages of encouragement from friends.

The following day, after the competition wrapped up, Choi said, "Even a single stray thread counts as a deduction." Kwon Yi-gyeom, the national team representative in graphic design, made a similar point while describing a task that required him to construct a packaging box. "If there's even a 1-millimeter error, everything shifts and the box won't fit together," he said. What was on the line at the world stage was not just design and technique, but the ability to execute both with near-zero margin for error.

One of Choi's assigned tasks was to deconstruct the skirt she had made on the second day of competition and add new design elements to it. She had expected to build an entirely new garment, so the instruction came as a surprise. She had just 15 minutes to conceive a new design.

Rather than cutting individual floral motifs and attaching them one by one, she chose to work with the fabric as a whole and finish the edges. The approach required less handling and reduced the risk of threads unraveling from any miscut. She picked a design she could execute confidently within the time and materials available. She also devoted considerable time to ironing. "You can completely change the fit of a piece just through pressing," Choi said.

In her regular work, Choi also turns to AI for design advice — sending photos of her finished garments and asking where to add embellishments or how to make a piece more creative. The suggestions were not always useful, however: when she wanted small, workable details she could execute within a tight timeframe, the AI sometimes returned designs that were too large and elaborate.

Kwon's graphic design tasks also extended well beyond the screen. On the second day, he was required to design a medal and the packaging box to hold it — a box engineered to display the medal standing at a 45-degree angle.

Kwon measured the dimensions of a model, designed the structure on a computer, printed it onto thick paper, then cut and folded it by hand to complete the box. He also produced a three-panel folded brochure describing the medal. Precision from the very first step was essential: any error in an earlier stage would carry through to the next. He said he found it easier to concentrate than usual and was satisfied with how the finished pieces turned out.

Internet access and AI tools were restricted during this year's graphic design competition, Kwon said. In his day-to-day work, however, he does use AI — asking it to reframe images from different angles when he cannot find a shot with the composition he needs. He finds AI limited when it comes to fine-tuned adjustments, but he still tries to learn the features that genuinely help his workflow, checking each update to his design software as it rolls out.

"When AI comes along, I study that. When something new comes after that, I study that too."

At the welding arena, sparks flew behind red-tinted protective shields. An Chang-yong, the national team representative in welding and an employee of Samsung Heavy Industries, said the discipline demands split-second sensitivity. "In welding, you have to react to the tiniest flicker — a light that blinks for 0.1 seconds," he said. If a bubble appears in the weld pool, he explained, a competitor must stop immediately, grind down the affected area and address it on the spot.

Welds are evaluated not only on their surface appearance but also through X-ray inspection that checks for internal porosity and defects. At this competition, An encountered steel that felt different from what he had trained on. He stopped, took about 30 seconds to steady his breathing, drank some water and returned to the weld. Adapting a familiar technique to unfamiliar materials and conditions, he said, is part of what a competitor must do.

An took up welding in high school at his father's suggestion and said he now wants to pass the craft on to younger students. "I want to be a mentor who is respected and who can change someone's life — the way my own coach changed mine," he said.

Kwon, meanwhile, said he wants to keep developing the motion graphics skills he first picked up while preparing for the world competition. His next goal is to produce advertisements that use moving images to promote companies' products. Graphic design began as a childhood love of drawing and became his path to the world stage; preparing for the competition also opened up a new area of interest he had not anticipated.

After years of preparation, the end of the competition was hard to take in. Kwon said he was left with some regret over the third day, when he received an unfamiliar newspaper-format booklet task, and admitted he spent the morning of the final day worrying he might make another mistake. When it was all over, he called his parents. Hearing their voices, the tension broke and he began to cry.

"I feel like I'll be back in training on Monday and living the same life as before — I just can't quite believe it's actually over."