Enthusiasm growing for emerging designers

Young Australian designer, Sophie Russo, from the The Sydney University of Technology, showed winning form with her collection entitled "A l'envers" at last year's Southern Trust iD Emerging Designer Awards. Photo by Craig Baxter.

The gracious marquee dominating the closed carriageway in the Octagon one March night back in 2005 might have reminded visiting New Yorkers of a miniature Bryant Park, the green space in midtown Manhattan where huge tents are erected each spring and autumn for the Mercedes New York Fashion Week shows.

This was the intriguing scene set for the inaugural Vodafone iD Dunedin Fashion Week's Emerging Designer Awards, held a night before the main event at the Dunedin Railway Station.

The crowd, caught up in the heady early-evening Octagon atmosphere, packed the marquee to see the exhilarating, imaginative collections of 20 young designers from Australia and New Zealand paraded before a high-powered selection panel.

Among those gathered was Jack Yan, editor of the international Lucire fashion and lifestyle magazine. He was one of the judges, and a long-time advocate of Dunedin's distinctive fashion design scene.

He would write: "By the end of the evening we were asking the organisers why the awards could not take place over two nights and be a greater international event".

But all was already in hand, and the next year the awards did don a true international mantle attracting designers from England, Slovakia and Finland to compete for the $3000 first prize and the chance of a spot among top designers in the the railway station show the following night.

In order to maintain it as a one-night event the marquee's mystique was sacrificed for the Lion Foundation Arena at the Edgar Centre with its greater seating capacity.

In 2007, and last year, the momentum built further.

This year's Southern Trust-sponsored show is again at the Edgar Centre, on March 13.

Thirty-one designers will show their collections, chosen from more than 100 entries from 11 countries.

Australia, Belgium, Israel, Italy, Sweden and Taiwan are represented, while a number of lecturers and directors from various training institutes and universities are also coming to Dunedin.

These include Dr Clemens Thornquist, the chair of the Fashion Design School of Textiles at the University College of Boras, Sweden.

Of the 16 New Zealand finalists, six are graduates of the Otago Polytechnic School of Fashion.

The school has been a main player in the event's formulation and growth, going back to 1999 when its now academic leader, Margo Barton, and Dunedin designer Andrea Bentley won a place at the prestigious Mittelmoda awards in Gorizia, Italy, with a collaborative collection.

They were the first New Zealanders to compete there.

"Gorizia is a small Italian town and I came home sure that Dunedin could run a similar international event," Ms Barton says.

She aired the idea with the iD organising committee and found herself co-opted.