I spent last week in New Zealand at the iD Dunedin Fashion week to take part in the Emerging Designer Awards on Thursday night. Despite the freezing weather all week I had a lot of fun and enjoyed being part of such a great show.
Having finished the collection almost 6 months ago the judging day and awards night was relatively stress-free for me as I already know that the collection 'works' and I'm not as emotionally attached to it as I was when I'd just spent three solid months making it. So it was easy to talk about to the judges & media (I'd be pretty happy if I never had to sum up my inspiration ever again) and didn't really require any pre-show prep like ironing, steaming, mending etc. Opening the show also meant that I had plenty of time to get the models ready, and I was able to just enjoy the rest of the night taking photos backstage. I should also mention that students from Otago Polytechnic volunteered as dressers and assistants (yes, I got my own assistant!) so that was a huge help in making the night run smoothly.
No prizes for me, which was a shame but I did enjoy the honour of opening the show and finding my work in various media publications around Dunedin!
I haven't found too many photos of my work from the night, but then that might be a good thing because this blog is pretty much filled with photos of this collection! I did like the natural hair & makeup much more than
our grad show so I'm glad I found a few photos.
Photo:
Seen in Dunedin
Models (L-R): Clementine, Tara, Nicole, Cecily & Christina from Ali McD
Photo:
Otago Daily Times
Model: Nicole from Ali McD
Otago Tourist Times
Air New Zealand in-flight magazine
Remix Magazine
A couple of articles that mentioned me:
Fashion NZ
"It is possible that this reviewer likes sci fi a bit too much, but with Alexandra Kenworthy’s (Aus) Pierre Cardin-esque/2001 A Space Odyssey sixties space age future wear to the Dune stylings of Marie Kelly (NZ), Sarah Peterson (Netherlands) and Jo Templin (Aus) – Hollywood need look no further for innovative costume designers for their next film." (Miranda Likeman)
NZ Herald
"Amelia Boland's white baby doll dress and Alexandra Kenworthy's fun Carnaby Street-inspired yellow jacket had me scribbling 'I WANT' in my notes." (Zoe Walker)
Also, while shamelessly googling myself to find media about the show I found a blog post on
Flaming Hippo Lips with photos from last year's grad show. Because clearly you haven't seen enough photos of this collection...
Edit - Mum just let me know that I was also mentioned on the
Vogue Italia website when the finalists were first announced!
These are some of the other collections that showed on Thursday night:
I'm not usually into all-black collections but I loved
Marielle Van De Ven's styling.
Miyoko Kamijo's collection had amazing accessories and one of my current favourite colour combinations - yellow and grey.
Hui Vivien Zhang went to uni with me - I love the purple dress in the middle, it has a gorgeous back view too.
Laura Poole also went to UTS, and did a zero-waste collection using digital prints.
The other UTS rep was
Sarah Mok who won 3rd Prize.
I thought
Julia Campbell's collection was particularly good because her collection was very diverse yet still worked together beautifully - very hard to achieve in only five looks!
All photos from
Seen in Dunedin
Arriving in torrential rain and hail
The beautiful (and freezing cold) Otago Peninsula
Helping myself to some free samples at Speight's Brewery
Display of vintage fashion photos at the Otago Daily Times, who hosted the opening night pary
My models dressed & ready on judging day
Cadbury Factory!
Backstage at the Emerging Designer Awards
One of Laura's headdresses
Doing some hand modelling to pass the time
My Collection on stage (wish they'd given my dad a better seat!)
My awesome assistant, Margo
Akira Isogawa's collection at the railway station
Dunedin Railway Station
So glad we finally got a warm-ish sunny day to explore the gardens!
We took a little road trip to nearby Invercargill which also has beautiful gardens. This little goat lives at the mini-zoo in the gardens.
I love bunnies.
