New Zealand’s Virtual Re-Start Fashion Competition

Kicking off New Zealand Week in Malaysia, 

the Virtual Re-Start Fashion Competition was held during the New Zealand Gala Night last week.

It was developed by Education New Zealand to showcase the quality of fashion and design programmes in New Zealand. The competition paired ten local fashion design students with ten from New Zealand, and each pair was given RM2500 budget to design garments based on the theme "Re-Start", reminiscing the 2011 Christchurch earthquake in NZ. 

 I was fortunate to watch the runway show that showcased designs ranging from street wear to formal attire. There were also fashionable accessories made of mesh metal, aluminium-crafted footwear as well as outfits that incorporated wood.

 10 amazing pair of student designers, despite of distance separation, were able to communicate regularly through email and Skype to work for the success of this fashion competition.

The cataclysmic event of Christchurch in 2011 claimed 185 lives, and now the site is finally recovered. Despite of that, some teams went for dark, sombre colours that reflected a mood of mourning. 

 Some used positivism as the main element in their designs, like vibrant colours that symbolised hope or white floral designs as a tribute to the lived lost in the earthquake.

The competition saw participants from NZ and Malaysia collaborating to produce many unique outfits. 

 10 teams, with 4 models from each team, had done pretty well in their research and fashion design. 

And the grand winner went to Malaysian Kathryn Lagrosa Rao and New Zealand Kiwi Phoebe Ratcliff. Following pictures are their masterpieces based on 3 main concepts- 

Empty spaced, chairs and daisies. 

 They played with contrast layerings and used pretty daisies as the main elements to represent optimism.

Truly a daisy affair! 

Having to know that the duo had painted the flowers and painstakingly sewn them onto their cocktail dress to represent life blooming from the cracks of the earth, I really admire their patience and determination!

Congrats to the young girls for winning away NZD10,000 (RM25,000) for their hard work!

Overall, it was a memorable evening with lots of good food, amazing singing performances as well as an eye-opening fashion runway. Not forgetting I met lots of great people there, including Datuk Jimmy Choo, the legendary Malaysian shoe designer.