Edible Fashion entrants make it hard for judges to decide

Designer of the Year Keryn Whitney modelling Serqet at the Edible Fashion Awards on Saturday. Photo/Paul Taylor

Beetroot, bottle tops, chip packets and cutlery laden designs were highlights of this year's Edible Fashion Awards.

The event, which was held at Peak Vision Centre in Havelock North for the first time, took place at the weekend with registration and pre-judging on Friday and winners announced at an Evening Extravaganza on Saturday.

The 12th annual event had participants create outfits from edible food items, imitation food items or food packaging with the theme Myth & Legend.

Event director Kelie Jensen said she was blown away by many of the entries.

"I thought the standard was amazing, it just gets better and better every year," she said.

"I think the judges had a really hard time because there were so many amazing entries in all of the categories.

"It's pretty incredible what shows up on the day, the work that's gone into it."

Some children collected chip packets at school throughout the year to make their creation and another entrant individually threaded milk bottle tops into her garment.

The winner of Designer of the Year, Keryn Whitney, used biodegradable cutlery in her design Serqet.

Designer of the Year runner-up and winner of the Intermediate Designer section Myla Groombridge used dehydrated slices of beetroot to create her piece titled Echidna.

The event was a celebration of the region with participants, performers and the MC all from Hawke's Bay, Ms Jensen said.

All the judges also have connections to the region having lived or been raised in Hawke's Bay.

"The thing I'm really proud of is that it's all local," she said.

There were more than 700 people in the audience at Saturday night's Evening Extravaganza which was up from last year, she said.

The new venue, Peak Vision Centre, was a hit with both audience and participants because of its size.

Another new thing this year is the People's Choice Award which will be run via social media.

Photos of all finalists' designs will be put on Facebook sometime this week so members of the public can vote for their favourite.

Some of the designs will be displayed at the Hastings Community Arts Centre later this month for the first time.