The Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival has announces that applications for the 2017 edition are now open.
The Festival has invited designers and industry experts to take part in the upcoming event, which will run from March 1 to 19.
The Festival is calling for applications to potentially participate in one of three main program pillars: Fashion, Arts, and Ideas.
The Festival’s Premium Runways showcase ready to wear collections from leading fashion designers that have a prominent Australian retail presence.
Designers are curated into group shows and provided with a fully produced world-class runway with top tier industry models, styling and production.
The Arts program will comprise of Festival-produced initiatives and be complimented by a vast program of activities, spanning across art, design, performance, film and writing practice, state wide.
As part of the Festival’s Arts program, applications are now open for Australian and International short filmmakers to submit their work to be considered for the Fashion Film Series.
Judged by film and fashion luminaries, finalists have the opportunity for their work to be broadcast to extensive live and digital audiences throughout the duration of the Festival.
Also featuring in the Arts program is the Fashion Writing Series, also now taking applications from aspiring short and long form fashion writers. Vying for a mentorship with an industry leader and publication in online and print media, this program celebrates and nurtures the art of fashion writing through its future creative leaders.
The Ideas program will feature the Festival’s own Business Events Program, a carefully curated series of four business and networking events.
The Festival also welcomes creative business leaders to stage self-managed business events as part of the program.
In addition to these pillars, the Festival, together with Jakarta Fashion Week, has opened applications for the 2016 Australia-Indonesia Fashion Exchange, inviting emerging fashion designers in Australia to apply.
Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival CEO Graeme Lewsey said the event is pleased to expand its schedule each year.
“The Festival is the leader in the ‘see now buy now’ fashion event landscape and is proud to host and share such wonderful design talent with not only a national, but international audiences, who are engaged and support the continued growth of the Australian fashion industry."
The 2016 Festival program comprised 186 events and activities staged across Melbourne and regional Victoria, and attracted more than 380,000 local, interstate, and international attendees to Festival events and aligned activities.