Canberra’s Booming Fashion Industry
Showcasing Canberra’s finest design talent Fashfest is now the ACT’s biggest fashion event.
After launching last year during Canberra’s 100th birthday the show saw great success. The red carpet event presents locals with a fresh fashion show and has also presented major opportunities for those in the industry.
Whether it be designing, lighting, sound, music, graphic design, photography, writing, hair and makeup or modeling the show has finally provided all talented locals with the opportunity to showcase their work.
Perpetually Five — Mitch Thompson
Local designer Mitch Thompson has returned this year with his label Perpetually Five.
“Perpetually Five is designed to keep adults sophisticated yet young at heart. The childlike attitude is an important part of Perpetually Fives philosophy to endeavor to be conceptual, set out to redefine menswear by constantly striving to give form to new approaches to fashion. In doing so Perpetually Five endeavours to build a cohesive bridge between a casual and dressy, fun and smart.”
Thompson’s showcase of Perpetually Five presented a quirky, playful collection “inspired by children’s imagination and a lot of colour.”
“Without Fashfest I would have waited a few more years to launch my label, the event acts as a stepping-stone for young local designers to launch their labels. It’s a great way to show the talent in Canberra as a catwalk show as it is much more exciting than looking at photos online,” Mitch says.
Mitch got involved in the show after the 2012 CIT Graduate Parade. This year Mitch has decided to push his designs and introduce a new monochromatic collection that will also feature women’s wear, “I wanted to see if I could create a black and white collection and still keep the Perpetually Five aesthetic.”
Mitch believes Fashfest not only opens doors for upcoming designers but also “gives you something to work towards.”
Character — Holly Squair
After also studying fashion at CIT, local designer Holly Squair was selected for this years Fashfest.
As it is Holly’s first year of commercial production the young designer falls into the category of graduate designer.
Holly is the creative mind behind the label Character, whose inspiration is to “produce unique statement clothing for my niche market of Women who are age 60 – 85 years young.”
With the help of Fashfest providing her with the opportunity to make her mark in the fashion world Holly believes the event will be a positive start to her career and has big plans for the future.
“After Fasfest I hope to get a job in the fashion industry in Sydney or Melbourne. I would like to work in the industry before I open up my own boutique, If fashfest is a success I may even find stockists which will kickstart my business.” She said.
Holly is experiencing first hand the benefits of a large-scale fashion show in Canberra as a young graduate designer and believes the lead up to the event has already given her many great opportunities “Just through PR for Fashfest this year I have had many individual media features,PR work to this scale would be worth multiple thousands of dollars.”
Despite the description of a fashion show designers are not the only ones benefiting from the large-scale event. In order for the show to be successful on a whole there are many volunteers working tirelessly in their specilaised fields behind the scenes.
Makeup artists like 20-year-old Merissa Devine have also been offered a chance to show off their skills and play their part in the event.
Merissa being a local freelance makeup artist was thrilled with the opportunity to be involved after applying through the events Facebook page.
When a photo shoot or runway show is taking place Make up Artists (MUA) are behind the scenes working their magic.
MUA’s like Merissa have greatly benefitted from the event.
“So far just since being involved in Fashfest we have had an outstanding amount of opportunities for photo shoots promoting each designer, brand, label and anything to do with Fashfest. So we have that opportunity to build our portfolio, get ourselves out there and build a name.”
Fashfest 2014 will be commencing over four days this year from the 30th of April until the 3rd of May, and will feature a different show each evening.
Collections from both graduates and previous designers will be heading down the runway on all nights giving Canberra a taste of a stylish fashion week.
Text By Laura Mann
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