The Rena shipping disaster and car underseal provided the creative inspiration for the top prize winner of the Hokonui Fashion Design Awards in Gore on Saturday night.
Otago Polytechnic School of Fashion design student Charlotte Bishop won The Ensign Award of Excellence and sewed up a $12,000 prize package for her latex dress dubbed Black Tide.
The dress was also the winner of the VnC cocktails Avante Garde open section.
Miss Bishop, a third-year student who lives in Tauranga and is completing the Otago course through the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic, did not attend the awards but watched them via Skype.
Contacted yesterday, she said the dress was designed to look like birds washed ashore after the Rena oil spill in October 2011.
Using latex as a fabric was a "random idea" she got when she saw her flatmate applying underseal to his car.
"The liquid latex was mixed with Indian ink to get the colouring - the black glossiness. It was quite time-consuming."
The latex was applied on to a mannequin in 15 layers, each of which took about 24 hours to dry.
Miss Bishop had not slept well since her win.
"It is amazing.
"I don't even know what I can say.
"Thank you to everybody. I am really grateful."
As well as Miss Bishop's entry, the judges also warmed to the wool designs of Gore designer Viv Tamblyn, who won the Fredricks Menswear open section and was placed second in the Southern Institute of Technology Wool Award open section.
She also won the BONZ machine knitted and hand knitted awards Judge Doris De Pont said the judges were "very, very, impressed" by the standard of entries in the school section.
About 1200 people attended awards shows on Friday and Saturday night, with $1 from each ticket going towards the Dunedin Chair of Neurosurgery fundraising campaign.
By Russell Frederic.
