KEY POINTS:
Should you and your husband or wife ever want to venture out in something intensely symbiotic, Otago design student, Sharn Blackwell, has got the outfit for you.
Last night in Dunedin at the finals of the Southern Trust iD Dunedin Emerging Designer awards, Blackwell was just one
of eighteen young designers showing mini fashion collections.
The contest had attracted around eighty entries from design students around the world all hoping to win the grand prizes, up to $5000 in cash or a trip to Italy to compete in the international Mittelmoda design competition, a similar student design competition held in Italy which attracts entries from around 60 countries every year and which helps launch the young designers participating.
And, as one might expect of student designers with something big to prove, there were quite a few crazy and artistic outfits on display. Blackwell's range of four looks definitely kept the audience of around eight hundred locals and visitors gasping - whether in awe or disbelief it was hard to say but people in Dunedin are used to this kind of creativity so hopefully it was awe.
It involved a lot of creative quilting with the first model arriving on the runway in what looked like giant pumpkin and sensible, flat brown shoes.
The next two girls wore a quilted strapless dress and hot pants with a padded hunchback. Then finally came the outfit that will be just perfect for anyone who likes the idea of matching their outfits with a beloved but who might want to take the look a little further.
During the shows down here, during Dunedin's fashion week events, there have been twin redheaded sisters modeling at nearly every gig. On this occasion they came out together, literally joined at the hip, in a padded Siamese twins-style outfit which they unzipped at end of the runway, much to the crowd's amusement. Now that's entertainment - not to mention extremely well styled.
Of course there was more that was wild and wacky. It's an international competition - nearly half of the finalists were from Australia and there were also collections from India and Hong Kong - and Kim Berit Heppelman had brought her one-piece body stockings all the way from Germany. Apart from one girl who wore antennae-cum-antelope-horns on her head, you couldn't see any of Berit Heppelman's models' faces as they strode into the auditorium; there was only an anonymous pale blue or white or yellow gimp mask - clearly a must-have for stylish bank robbers everywhere.
Meanwhile another Otago student, James Currie, had made the sort of space age dress an octopus might like, with a multitude of deconstructed sleeves hanging from it and patchworked, puffed neckpieces that sat like futuristic ruffs around his models' necks.
Other interesting developments included Playschool-style appliqué, a fair few MC Hammer pants with low crotches, some slinky plunging tuxedo-style dresses and a batch of massively oversized collars and pockets so big they dangled off Australian designer, Vanessa Lane's dresses.
But naturally there were also far more wearable outfits. The two Auckland finalists, Holly Wright and Yasmin Shardlow, whose work has been seen before at Air New Zealand Fashion Week up north, clearly had one eye on commercial applications with their clever but relatively restrained clothes, Wright with her naïve stitching and folk theme and Shardlow with her elegant, architectural constructions in wool.
Also worth keeping an eye out for in the future were Kiriana Pettersen from Massey University with her simple-but-smart deconstructions of a plain old shirt and Nicholas Wilsdon from Queensland, Australia. This dapper young man's well made collection, complete with fantastically minimalist hats, stood out as very grown up and elegant in comparison with some of the bolder, brighter outfits - it was different yet utterly wearable and if he carries on like this, Wilsdon will definitely be one to watch.
And then of course there the winners. There was a tie for second place with popular local girl, Sam Mitchell, getting $2000 and a boisterous round of applause for her efforts with rainbow coloured bumbags and her New Rave street stylings.
Sharing the prize with her, for another $2000 was Han Mai from the Queensland University of Technology. Her sportswear, featuring some of the coolest parkas you've ever wanted to go jogging in, made from panels of multi colured nylon, was another of the strongest there. Some big leisure wear firm - are you listening, Mr Nike? Mr Reebok? - should snap this girl up.
And finally, the biggest winner was Sophie Russo. The Australian who'd made it to Dunedin, via Europe, where she's been living for the past three years, was awarded both the $5000 first prize and the trip to Italy to compete in the international student design contest run by Mittelmoda. In fact, she was the first to win both prizes at once.
"We liked her work because it was current but it was also a little bit different, and it was sexy and wearable," designer Adrian Hailwood explained after the show.
The Auckland based designer was one of four judges; the others were Stacy Gregg of Fashion Quarterly magazine and the Runway Reporter website, Georgina Safe, fashion editor of The Australian newspaper and Stefano Sopelza, who comes from Italy and who is regularly involved with the Mittelmoda competition.
"We felt that [Sophie's] collection was the most complete," Sopelza added. "Every single one of those garments can be transformed and every single outfit was special. The ideas were strong and the garments were well made. When we compared her collection to the others it also seemed to be a little more mature."
Part of the reason for this must be the fact that Russo has actually been living in Paris for the past year and a half. As she tells it, although she'd gone to Paris after graduating from a four year design degree in Sydney, in order to get a job in fashion, she ended up waitressing. Then a friend encouraged her to enter the contest.
"Because I had a very small budget I decided to make a collection of transform-able clothing. I only had the pieces of fabric to work with what I already had in my cupboard so I thought if I did that it would make it look like a full range," Russo says, laughing. "So I bought a little sewing machine and sat in my room for a month and made it all."
After this, Russo, who's come to Dunedin straight from Europe, plans to return to Sydney to visit family but she's hoping to come back to Dunedin soon - and with any luck, she says, she'll even get a job in the local fashion industry.
