Dunedin Fashion Week to recreate lost art of hand weaving

Four stand-out fashion graduate collections from the Otago Polytechnic School of Design have been selected from a field of 16 on display at the recent Collections 13 runway show to launch their careers at next year’s iD Dunedin Fashion Show on Friday 4 April and Saturday 5 April 2014.

Justine Tindley, 41 (Dunedin), Lauren Arthur, 23 (Dunedin) Georgia Ferguson, 21 (Dunedin, now living in Auckland), and Hannah Heslop, 20 (Christchurch) will showcase their final-year collections alongside high-profile New Zealand fashion designers, international and national guests, and emerging international designers. Since 2002, the event has included a special section for graduate designers – attracting top talent from Dunedin’s prestigious fashion school.

Three of the graduates – Arthur, Ferguson and Heslop – were also part of the contingent made up of eight fashion students and one communications student chosen to show at the prominent Shanghai Fashion Week in October. Tindley was also chosen as this year’s top student, while Arthur won the Plume Award at Collections 13, and Ferguson spent the first semester in Italy as an IED Moda Milan exchange student.

One of this year’s selectors, Dunedin-based fashion designer and iD committee member Charmaine Reveley, who was chosen to show at iD as a new graduate in the inaugural 2002 year, says while choosing this year’s graduates was a tough decision, the four collections stood out in their creativity and quality.  “This year’s selections are going to surprise and inspire iD audiences,” she says.

“The graduates have taken some amazing old techniques and redefined them – bringing them back to life and making them contemporary. It’s all about texture, shape and silhouette.”  

The four 2013 graduates join a proud history of graduate collections at iD, with many talented newcomers going on to high flying fashion careers. 2013’s Rakel Blom, who also won the iD International Emerging Designer Awards, has recently launched her new label while based in the UK, while Fiona Clements’ (2012) new eco label Senorita AweSUMO, will show at iDFW XV.

Others include Anjali Stewart (2005), who is now designer and partner with popular label twenty seven names and Amelia Boland (2011) who showed her graduate collection at Nolcha Fashion Week in New York and is now producing a line of handmade leather bags.  

Dr Margo Barton, Otago Polytechnic’s School of Design academic leader and principal lecturer (Fashion), says this year’s crop of graduates were incredibly talented and she was looking forward to seeing them at iD.

“We had another strong year, and I imagine it must be hard for the selectors to choose. What stood out for me this year was these incredible handcraft techniques used in ways that could be produced commercially. Collaboration was also another big theme across the board – and these interactions between the graduates and the industry – or with each other – is very important long term.”

iD Dunedin Fashion Week