The weird and the wonderful

Death was the inspiration.

Shun Yin Wong’s models swept into the Fullwood Room in the Dunedin Centre, some shrouded, some not, in what the designer said was the sort of clothing she might wear at her own funeral.

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It was just the sort of moment that makes the iD International Emerging Designers Show what it is.

The procession of models at yesterday’s judging day were draped in a variety of inspirations ranging from sexual assault to punk to military uniforms to 18th-century romanticism.

They marched up to judges Margi Robertson, Tanya Carlson, Benny Castles and Amanda Linnell with the designers of their outfits, who spoke about their inspirations, techniques, and their plans for a career in fashion design.

About 40 entrants showed designs with masses of cascading material, long trailing belts and laminated denim they had clearly spent hundreds of hours developing.

There was talk of deconstruction and trans-seasonal looks.

They were delightfully weird, as the emerging designers that come to Dunedin each year should be.

Ms Carlson described the standard of the designs she saw yesterday as "incredible".

She said each year there were themes that came through, and this year it was memory, the places the designers come from, their feelings about their families and their journeys through life.

The students were "looking quite deep inside themselves to come up with their personal inspiration".

"The key to design success is developing your own handwriting, your own signature, and come what may, riding out the storms by just keeping doing what you firmly believe in."