NATIONAL: Three new generation labels are set to battle it out for a creative grant as part of the Qantas Spirit of Youth Awards (SOYA).
Womenswear designers Jade Sarita Arnott (Arnsdorf), Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales (Romance Was Born) and Gary Bigeni have been named as finalists in the award's fashion category.
The winner of the award, to be announced on November 11 in Sydney, will walk away with $5000 in cash, $5000 worth of flights from Qantas, and a mentoring opportunity with Nicky and Simone Zimmerman.
Finalists were drawn from a pool of nationwide entries and were hand picked by the Zimmerman duo.
Executive Manager of Qantas Customer and Marketing, Lesley Grant, praised the hard work of this year's entrants and the possibilities on offer to them.
"SOYA has given each of these artists a rare opportunity to gain exposure with their industries' leaders who, as SOYA mentors, which coach and counsel the winners in their category," he said.
"Qantas is proud to support Australia's emerging creative leaders, who all have very bright futures ahead of them."
SOYA is Australia's leading grants program for emerging creatives aged 30 years and under. The annual program began in 2004 and awards mentoring opportunities across seven industries, namely fashion, music, film, photography, visual arts, visual communications and industrial and object design.
The 2008 winner of the fashion division was Antipodium designer Geoffrey J Finch.