WA Fashion Awards for Perth Fashion Festival 2009

WA Fashion Awards night at Burswood Ballroom officially marks the end of the Perth Fashion Festival. 7 days of fashion has sadly ended. Before I can go on thinking about going back to my regular routine (going to work etc) I thought I should share with you what the night was like as I was there. It’s not the first time for me to attend events at the ballroom but I’m always interested in getting the mood of the place by taking some random photos. It was quite obvious that they put in quite a bit of effort and money setting the secne with exquisite chandeliers and drapes.

It’s been a very cold, windy and rainy day today. That didn’t stop from girls to totally frock up for the event. Hundreds of guests arrived to enjoy the night of nights for fashion in WA. As our Lord Mayor pointed out Perth is ‘no longer a teenage girl figuring things out she is a mature sexy woman with nice frocks to go with it.’ Well, it may not make much sense here and it’s not quite exactly how she put it but her point was the fact that Perth, althought being the most remote capitol city on the planet, is setting up to be the destination for fashion and life style. I do not disagree with that after spending a week having looked at what’s on offer.

Just outside of the venue they also had silient auctions for charity. There were quite a few fashionable items to grab notably one of a kind necklace by Mimco, specially embroided dress by AE’lkemi and Flannel’s latest design which isn’t available anywhere in the world yet. These were donated by the designers for Telethon I think.

After a rather long acknowledgement for sponsors the awards night kicked off with annoucement of the Student Runway winners. Unfortunately, I didn’t get all the names. Sorry about that. The most exciting part for me was Andrea winning the eco design category (as I’ve been predicting!!!). Jane from Central TAFE, Andrea from Swan and Ellie from Curtin uni are the winners of the speical fashion industry experinece along with having a studio in the city for the coming year. Congrats to my dear ladies.

Winner of Ready to Wear Womens – Lauren Hung (Curtin University)
Eco Design – Andrea Wolf (Swan TAFE)
Ready to Wear Mens – Jane Kelsey (Central TAFE)
Costume Couture – Kate Bell (Curtin University)
Contemporary Eveningwear – Ellie Meyer (Curtin University)

Another interesting annoucement was for the Fine Details in accessory design which went to Sophie Kyron. I would have liked to see Alister Yiap winning this award but I could see why Sophie took this award. Her pieces are wonderful and they do have more of a mass appeal.

The best dressed boutique award went to Zekka. I’ve been meaning to visit the store in King St. I called them but when I did it was Monday and the store isn’t open on Mondays. There’s my assignment right there then – paying a visit to zekka and see how well dressed it is.

Now, on to the models of the year. We have Millicent Lambert from Vivien’s winning How New Talent award. This is what Rosie Tupper received last year. She is not a jet setting model. I’m sure Millicent is doing just that at the moment if not more. Runway Model of the Year went to Paris Fontana from Chadwich. She is one of my favouriate models. I wasn’t surprised. She is not only gorgeous but very natual on the catwalk. Photographic Model of the Year went to Bridget Malcolm. She is an interesting one. I’m sure I’ve taken many photos of her but I cannot recognise her from one photo to another. I also just found out that she did one of the campaigns for Empire Rose a year or two ago. I didn’t notice her then either. I guess that’s why she wins this award.

Another exciting thing was seeing Kirsten winning the Designer of Tomorrow award tonight. I got to hug her before she went on to the stage as I was standing right next to the runway. It’s only just a short weeks ago before STYLEAID 09 when I first caught up with her. She is now famous!

The final award, Most Innovative WA Designer, went to Joveeba’s Alison Cotton. Unfortunately, my fashion radar hasn’t reached Joveeba yet. I have seen her designs as part of the Fashion WA launch and the Designer Collections as part of the festival so you will soon get to see why she was the favouriate among WA fashion industry people.

Lastly, if these weren’t exciting enough I thought the massive costume couture dress presented by Swan TAFE’s Graeme Hall alone was worth waiting around until 11pm for the event to end. It’s been a long night as it’s 2:45am my time. It’s been a long day and a long week. I’ll continue to do some additional posts on the festival as I haven’t even blogged half the stuff I meant to. If I sound a little sloppy here it’s because I’m falling a sleep as I type this. Good night and hopefully I’ll come back tomorrow.

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