Melbourne designer steals Kiwi show

Dismay at the amount of copying occurring across the Australian fashion landscape has helped a Melbourne designer take out a significant emerging design award across the Tasman.
More than 30 fledgling designer's from around the world vied for the top prize at the Vodafone ID Dunedin Emerging Designer Awards 2007 held in New Zealand last month.

Although overall winner Camille Howie was a Kiwi, Melbourne's Sam Fisher - a graduate of RMIT who recently launched his Label Fischer Von Meszlenyi - was the recipient of the most coveted prize after being awarded the chance to debut his collection at the prestigious Mittelmoda show in Italy later this year.
Speaking after the show Fisher said he was "really excited" about the win.

"There were a lot of really talented people here so being given this award is really great. I want to move forward with my career and showing at Mittelmoda is a great platform for that."
Stefano Sopelza, of Mittelmoda, described Fisher's collection as "exceptional" and said it well and truly deserved a place on the Italian catwalk. Last year's prizewinner Shona Steele managed to secure a job with Benetton after showing in Italy.

Fisher's winning range, called 00.01.01.AW.07, focuses on the precision of traditional tailoring and transitions into more primitive forms of garment construction with the use of knotted fabric. Fisher said it also commented on the state of the Australian fashion industry through a surface treatment that makes the garments appear photocopied.
"There is a lot of copycatting going on with fashion in Australia and I wanted to draw attention to that in my own way. It's not something I like at all."

The Emerging Designer Award was just one event in the busy weeklong schedule. The highlight was the I-D Fashion Show, now in its seventh year, which is held at arguably the world's largest catwalk, Dunedin's heritage listed railway station platform. A capacity crowd of 1600 consumers turned out to watch 20 Otago-based designers, including hometown favourites Carlson, Mild Red, Nom-D and Dot Com, show their winter 2007 collections.