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.
Advisers Ryan Craig, then with Dunedin Tourism, and Geoff Terpstra, then manager of the Dunedin Fashion Incubator, helped give the event form.
With Annemarie Mains appointed as the iD fashion week co-ordinator that year, the committee began planning the awards to run in conjunction with the railway station show.
"After four successful years we felt the railway show needed satellite events to complement it and sustain it into the future, while allowing it to remain the star," Ms Staley said.
"Like the railway station it required tremendous effort, but as happens in Dunedin, where people are willing to roll up their sleeves and work towards a project, the magic was made."
In 2005 the inimitable Stefano Sopelza, project supervisor of the Mittelmoda awards, in Gorizia, was invited as a judge to give the show further international clout.
Sopelza has since tirelessly promoted the awards to the hundreds of fashion schools with which he is in touch and was confident after the first show it would get bigger, brighter and better.
Such awards events provide a rich experience for design students, in that they encapsulate what the fashion world is all about, he says.
"It has the same spirit of glamour, rivalry, [and] creativity, as well as the experience of a proper fashion show with choreography, art direction, DJs and professional models.
When all this meets up with the amazing spirit of the city of Dunedin - including the awards' organisers and the audiences who are all part of this magic - then the event becomes special even though it is not held in London, Paris or Milan.
"Dunedin and its surroundings are amazing," he says. "It's a place where the Kiwi spirit pervades art and fashion production making way for amazing collections from designers who have grown up there."
One young designer with warm memories of Dunedin is Carla Bergs, the awards' first winner in 2005, as a graduate of the Queensland University of Technology, in Brisbane.
Carla has just returned to Australia after three years living and working mainly in Paris.
Her work included designing, in Milan, for Elio Fiorucci and creating a golf-inspired fashion collection for a high-end Paris golf-wear company.
She also worked with couturier David Szeto, spent time in a Paris buying and consulting office and later worked with young independent creators to promote and sell their collections during Paris Fashion Week.
She plans to launch her own collection later this year in preparation for 2010 Paris Fashion Week.
Other young design graduates who showed at the Dunedin awards and are now carving design careers include England's Lucie Marquis (2006 winner), who is now working for Burberry in the UK, and and last year's winner Sophie Russo, of Australia, who has recently spent time in Sydney as a freelance design assistant with Sass and Bide and designed a womenswear collection for the Kornerd label.
Otago Polytechnic graduates Tara Viggo and Shola Steele, who won special Mittelmoda Awards in 2005 and 2006 respectively, are also in the northern hemisphere.
Ms Viggo is based in London as a freelance pattern-cutter.
She continues to work for Justina, a company that supplies designs to London's top-end stores and a high-end menswear company called Wintle, stocked exclusively at Harrods.
Ms Steele is continuing her career at Benetton's in Treviso, near Venice, designing men's and women's collections for the Sisley label.
She was offered the position following her appearance in the Mittelmoda awards in Gorizia in 2007.
However, none are more aware of the event's worth than the academics whose students will show at the iD event.
These include Wendy Armstrong, discipline leader, fashion, at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane.
"The awards are an invaluable opportunity for students to compete against other international students and to present their work to a panel of high-profile judges. Regardless of outcome, the experience to each competitor is unique and in lots of ways is a real-life work experience."
The fact that the event is the only international fashion competition held in New Zealand adds to the impetus for students to win their place as a finalist, says fashion design lecturer at the Auckland University of Technology Linda Jones.
It is valuable, anyway, for students' work to be seen by the media and the fashion industry.
Mary-Ellen Imlach, fashion programme co-ordinator and Deb Cumming, head of fashion at Massey University, hold similar views.
"The students began competing four years ago and interest is growing," they report.
For Margo Barton the worldwide interest is fulfilling.
"I believe the event's success is because of the combination of community and internationality.
"It's about the Dunedin community coming together to help stage and/or attend the shows, which gives a real feeling of inclusiveness for the overseas visitors."
But the last word should go to acclaimed designer Francis Hooper, of World, who is a judge this year for the iD Emerging Designers event and who said of Dunedin's fashion scene as far back as 2003:
"It's like Paris. It just doesn't get any better. This is what it's all about and I want to show here".
As this year's iD guest designer his wish is granted.
•Tickets for the Southern Trust iD Emerging Designer awards are available from Ticket Direct.
