Designs by Monique Duggan (L) and Felicity Gleeson (R) from Sydney
New Zealand's only major international emerging fashion design awards today announce the 30 unique collections from around the globe that will show at iD Dunedin Fashion Week in April this year.
The finalists were selected from a pool of nearly 100 entries and representing seven countries and 14 high profile fashion schools including Awards sponsor Otago Polytechnic. They will vie for top prizes in the prestigious Awards, to be held at the Dunedin Town Hall on Thursday April 23.
This year's selection panel – fashion industry guru Des Rusk and designers Tanya Carlson and Margi Robertson (NOM*d) – were impressed by this year's stellar selection, all with very unique collections.
"It is important for students to be taking risks and pushing boundaries in their entries. This year we certainly saw that, which is encouraging for the future of fashion," says Carlson. "It was refreshing to see great, progressive menswear represented. There was also an overwhelmingly strong showing from Australian schools, especially Sydney."
Rusk noted the diversity of entries. "We saw a contrast of aesthetics, from voluminous shapes and soft finishings, to paired back structure, technical fabrications and some inventive prints. From a personal note it was also pleasing to see strong menswear entrants, as well as some menswear-inspired womenswear ranges. All this made our final selections extremely difficult."
iD Committee Chair Susie Staley says this year's 11th anniversary of the awards is an exciting celebration of what is widely considered one of the Southern Hemisphere's top fashion awards.
"The iD International Emerging Designer Awards provide not only incredible networking opportunities and cash prizes, it is the platform from which the careers of many young designers have been launched. These are the designers to watch out for, who go on to work in high profile fashion houses around the world, or launch their own successful labels. Our highly esteemed judging panel of national and international fashion designers gives the finalists invaluable individual feedback, which is an incredible opportunity for many of these new designers. We are also delighted to announce that Otago Polytechnic, which has provided longstanding support to this event, has now come on board as the major sponsor of the Awards."
This year's finalists are:
– From New Zealand
Auckland University of Technology: Caroline Stephen
Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design, Auckland: Wilson Ong & Jorge Adrian Alfaro
Massey University, Wellington: Steve Hall
Otago Polytechnic, Dunedin: Kelsi Bennett & Grace Averis
International
– From Australia:
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology: Jessica Oldfield, Emma van de Merwe, Laura Fanning, Jessie Kiely
The Fashion Design Studio, Ultimo TAFE, Sydney: Jessica Ng
University of Technology, Sydney: Therese Yen, Vanessa Emirian, Tara Gurisik, Monique Duggan, Alison Murray, Jillian Boustred, Erica Deluchi, Donald Chung, Felicity Gleeson
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane: Emily Giles, Thea Blocksidge, Shea Cameron
– From China: Shanghai University of Engineering Science: Qi Ye & Yi Ming
– From Slovakia: Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava: Petra Kubíková
– From Singapore:Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts: Manikandan Vasudevan
Temasek Polytechnic: Yi Chin
– From USA: Savannah College of Art and Design: Yuyan He
– From India:Pearl Academy, New Delhi: Shinny Jain