It’s going to be a big show. I was there last year with some camera issues. Hopefully, I’ll have a better time this year. How would like to support young designers! Some of last year’s graduates went on to be part of WA Designer Collections at the Perth Fashion Festival. Of course, you’ll also see my stars - Zoe Trotman and Andrea Wolf. How about Graeme with his extraordinary costume dress!

Tickets: $ 40
Call 9267 7200 or email lauren.massy@swantafe.wa.edu.au

1. Henrietta Truscett‘s piece was inspired by Elizabeth Kenny, an Australian nurse from the 1930’s.
2. Anna Hohnen was inspired by the discovery of the damaging effects of climate
   change on our environment.
3. Emma Ward’s‘s piece is a recreation of the coral reef, limestone cape and astonishing biodiversity on the West Coast of Australia
4. Cynthia Chong celebrates the past, current and future discoveries of the
   ocean with her creation ‘Song of the Sea’.

I’m torn between 2 and 4. I hear that there will be an exhibition around the country so look out for those in August.

Just as a side note, it’s interesting that I only hear from WAIFT (SWAN TAFE) although there are four other institutions in WA with Fashion and Textile studies. It’s a bit of a battle getting info out of the other places: Curtin, Challenger TAFE, Central TAFE and ECU. Understandably, WAIFT seems to have the the biggest graduate show each year. It certainly gets more media attention than those I mentioned above. Guess who’s behind all this? I’m sure there are a lot of people working hard to make Swan TAFE the best place to study fashion but there’s someone working on this methodically. Pina Ielati, Senior Marketing Coordinator at Swan TAFE is right onto it. The graduate show is in December but she is already busy getting us (media, small or big) involved. I started planning for the rest of the year already with interviews and photo shoots to line up. I’m sure students at other institutions work just as hard but I don’t hear about them. Shame. It pays to have a good media person to get students’ work exposed early on.

Some people still don’t get why it’s important to get media involved namely, ME. Here’s why.

Any of those four students who entered Do it with Denim Fashion Awards will eventually graduate. I’ll cover their design then. They may well get picked up by Perth Fashion Festival that year. I’ll cover their story again with some pretty pickies. When people do searches in Google, for example, guess what gets listed at the top right in the first page? That’s right, Style Discovery! Do you see what I’m getting at? How many times do I have to say to people – Don’t underestimate blogging power. Only those who hear will benefit.

I don’t usually do any blog ‘sales’ pitch in this space but I felt a strong urge today for some reason. Who cares in the end? I don’t even have enough time in a day to do everything anyway.

When I first started blogging I had to rely heavily on my blog buddies – reciprocal visitors whose blogs I visit regularly. As I got busier with my full time job, I couldn’t keep up with the blog reading and commenting. That didn’t stop my blog from getting an increased traffic. There are many ways to get visitors and one of them I found is getting listed near the top in Google search result pages.

There are no hard and fast rules and I’ve worked this out by watching Feedjit’s traffic feed casually for less than six months.

If the blog is relatively new you will only have to check feedjit once a day or so. I check it two or three times day when I remember. See if any visitors have landed on your blog via Google through a search keyword. It’s easy enough to spot that as the source (xx arrived from) will be Google or other search engines. Click the search engine link and see where it takes you. You will see what that visitor searched for and how high your blog gets listed in Google. It could well be at top of the page or near the bottom of the page. Sometimes it’s not even in the first page.

By looking at the keywords and how relevant your blog is you can work out what’s best for your blog and your locality.

For example, before I went off to take photos for WAIFT Fashion show I did a little googling to see how much coverage the event got in the previous year. I realised that there wasn’t much info available so I did a post and titled it carefully (added WAIFT and full text in the post) to ensure that it could be easily searched. After the initial post I watched Feedjit to see if there was anyone searching for that. Voilà! I was getting quite a few visitors from Google. With that information I did a series of interviews on each designer from the show to beef up the content so when searched using WAIFT Graduate Show in Google my blog appears in the top half (3rd or 4th) the first search result page so click here to see if for yourself.

You could also find out what people are searching and landing in your blog by looking at keyword search traffics from analytics software. I use Google Analytics but I don’t check it often enough. For me, using Feedjit is more spontaneous and instantaneous (no pun intended). This is obviously a reactive response to visiting patterns. If I could predict what people would search then I won’t be doing what I’m doing!

Watching how people find your blog is good but what if your blog isn’t getting any visitors from search engines? That’s highly unlikely but if that is the case with your blog follow these rules and see if you get any increased traffic over time.

• Post often: Search engines love regularly updated content. I post daily and Google seems to like my blog for the kind of content I cover.
• Use meaningful post title: Don’t get too poetic or cryptic with post titles. Post titles are important because they are usually styled as ‘headings’ and ‘linked’. Heading and linking are important for search engines. If you’re using Blogger, Blogger makes URL using titles for each post. URL containing matching search keywords gets better ranking.
• Be linky: create links to other more authoritative sources or original website. Linked texts are more visible to search engines.
• Alt text for images: Search for Ika Butoni in Google, at the time of writing my blog Style Discovery gets the third and my flickr album on the forth spots after Ika butoni’s websites. If you’re using Flickr (or other image hosting service) it helps to add meaningful titles for photos as well. In case of Flickr, the image title becomes Alt (text alternative for images for the visually impaired) text for images.

Here are some of the examples of search results showing Style Discovery ranking well. This is no luck. It’s the result of carefully targeted writing of the blog content.

• writing for local people




The keyword was ‘memorylanecostumehire’



even the local ISP’s search engine lists my post on burlesque and because it’s local (Perth) it was more ‘clickable’

• writing on a sepecific designer


Did you notice how the post title didn’t match the URL here? The title has Ika Butoni in the front but the URL has Hong Kong Fashion Week Fall/Winter. That’s beacause I checked the ranking after the post went out and I wanted to get ranked higher with the designer name rather than the Hong Kong fashion week thing alone. When you edit the title of a post the URL doesn’t change. After that little change, my post gets higher than any other pages online after Ika’s own pages. I can’t ask for better result than that.

All the good sports who answered my interview questions were covered extensively in Style Discovery. I did my best to be partial regardless of their degree of talent or anything else. That’s what you get being a good sport. 

The designers I’m showing you here were ‘not so good sports’ last year because they didn’t respond to my request. That doesn’t make them bad designers though. I can clearly see that they are talented and that’s why I couldn’t just leave them in my folder not showcasing here. 

Claire Loneragan’s designs

Some people ask me whether they are talented in their chosen areas seeking some sort of a  confirmation and I respond to them like this “Talent can only take you so far”.  Being a good sport – passionate, kind hearted and hardworking are the words I use to describe many successful happy people I know. Does it matter whether one is famous or not? In the end, one’s happiness is more important. We all know that fame and money don’t always bring happiness. I believe ‘being a good sport’ is more likely to get you where you want to be. 

I do wish them the best of luck in whatever they want to do. Claire and Jessica are talented so I hope they are actually really good sports and missing my request was just an isolated incident.  

Jessica Stanton’s designs

There were other very talented but ‘not so good sport’ designers and you will soon find out in coming weeks.

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• Capitola Girl Jewelry Blog - I’m having a girl moment…
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• Fashion Birdcage - MATERIALBYPRODUCT Template Spring Summer 09 Collection
• fashion in my eyes - Coco in motion
• Fashion Pulse Daily - Fashion Pulse’s runway look of the day is none other than Rodarte’s Grecian goddess gowns – check out what we think about it!
• Fasshonaburu - Why should the mortgage companies and auto industry get all the breaks? A fashion industry bailout proposal.
• Flights of Fab Fashion Fancy - At Flights of Fab Fashion Fancy diamonds are a girl’s best friend!
• Iole in fashion - Sunglasses
• O.M.O. Writes - FASHION ICON: International Stylist, Catherine Baba. Hailed the “most stylish woman in Paris,” she epitomizes glamour and gaudiness!
• Shopping and Info - The scoop on Nicole Richie and Kim Kardashian wearing Rozae Nichols
• Style Discovery - Introducing young designers from the West Australian Institute of Fashion and Textile. Style Discovery’s show coverage, interviews and more.
• SwanDiamondRose - Mandy aka Yarnageddon is co-author of the upcoming Yarnbombing book.
• The Subadult Years - My fabulous sample sale example with Canadian designer Lucian Matis
• Tierra M Wilson - Fashion Gives Back In Arizona

It’s a little personal

• Being High Maintenance, not Bitchy - How to wear vests part 1: how the ladies rock it
• Dirty Laundry - Red: The first of a week long monochromatic experiment.
• dramatis personae - Bringing Back Burlesque… ways for the average girl to incorporate the glamour and glitz of Burlesque in to her wardrobe.
• Daisy Fairbanks Vintage - Pinkaholism. Love pink? Hate it? Find out more.
• la boudoir - Perfect Party Picks – Dresses to wear to that upcoming holiday party
• Little Black Book - The guide to online clothes shopping and where to look.
• In Life and In Fashion - Hibernation Helper: How to stay stylishly warm when it is c-c-c-cold outside! Brrrr!
• Or False Glitter - -Style crisis! Do we choose our style or does it choose us?
• shopfair - A guide to successful color matching. Find the right colors for your skintone and create colorful outfits.
• Style Symmetry - I Love London! Do you?
• THE COVETED - DIY : Turn old sweaters into lovely opera gloves.

‘Tis the Season

• AlysiaMarie.com - Trend Guide this Season =)
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• Mademoiselle Robot - Stylish gift ideas for your favourite sister (see also mum, grandma etc)
• Retro Chick - Last Minute Gifts for disorganised Retro Chicks
• The Sassy Peach - The Sassy Peach Holiday Gift Guide! 20 gifts under !

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• ShopDiary - finds some fantastic deals on cosmetics and fragrances at Costco, of all places!
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• Your Style Star - Hot Lip Tips

Chic Geek

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• Petite Bourgeoisie - Fashion Blog Design – The Options
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West Australian Institute of Fashion and Textile – Swan TAFE presented a stunning show last night with works from this year’s graduates. Total sixteen graduates showed off their skills in both Couture and Read to wear collections.  

It was a pleasant surprise seeing such big names supporting graduates: Sass & Bide, Aurelio Costarelia, Collette Dinnigan, Megan Salmon, Romance Was Born (by Anna Plunkett) and twenty other well known designers. The graduates will have a chance to gain industry experience working for all these fabulous brands and designers. Imagine that!

Another surprise was finding a well designed program which showcased graduates’ name, their branding and contact information.  I thought that was a nice touch given that now they are venturing into the world of business.

There were a smorgasbord of trends, colours and interesting cuts. As with all shows I’ve witnessed this year, there was plenty of energy, drama and girls in high heels missing steps here and there. Only to be expected and as you will all agree that is also part of the entertainment..

Of course, graduate shows cannot be completed without giving away awards recognizing outstanding talents. Here are the winners for 2008.

• Production Award: Leanne Lim (familiar name? she won the student designer award at the Perth Fashion Week)
• Most Consistent Student Award: Sara Lyndon
• Couture Range of the Year: Danielle Grosetti
• Ready to wear Collection of the Year: Danielle Grosetti
• Most Outstanding Student of the Year: Natalie Schorer
• Libertine Award: Ebony Harding
• Dawn Guille Mentor Program: Heather Webb

My fashion show reports always come in three or four posts so this is no exception. Not that I have some important facts and critiques to deliver. It’s just that my night of photo shoot didn’t go so well this time.* I’m supposed to receive official photographs so that I can report back to you proper. I will showcase each designer when I get my hands on better quality photos. In the meantime, these are some of my favorite pieces from the show.

*I consider myself lucky as this was really the first time I had a true night of complete dud shots. These photos above were the best I could get out of hundreds of shots.

P.S. I’m fast becoming a stranger to so many of my fave blogs. Events like this one and with my day job.. blog  reading is a thing of luxury which I can only do once a week or so. Catch you soon.

Related post:

• WAIFT individual designer coverage with interviews