iD Award Finalists Announced

A day spent poring over 128 entries to the iD International Emerging Designers Awards resulted in a very optimistic outlook on the future of fashion design globally.

The selection panel included three of New Zealand’s prima fashion designers, Tanya Carlson, Charmaine Reveley, and Tara Viggo. 

Carlson, who is also a member of the iD Dunedin Fashion Inc board, commented, “One of the overarching themes I saw was dystopianism but within it there was a lot of positivity and hope that I was impressed with, given the high level of self-direction that these students accomplished. They’ve been schooled through a pandemic and no doubt spent a lot of time out of classic classroom situations and I thought the standard was incredibly high.”

Viggo, herself a finalist in the first Awards in 2005, says, “Being part of this event can be a huge turning point for a graduate - my own career took wing, partly due to the confidence I gained, but also because my collection was presented in front of some of the industry’s key people.”

The iD International Emerging Designers Awards, which are sponsored by Otago Polytechnic, are one of only a couple of similar events in the world, making it a fixture - and an aspiration - on fashion school calendars everywhere.

Entries to the awards came from 33 schools in 14 countries and the 30 finalists represent a strong cross-section of those courses.

The collections will appear in the second half of the iD Dunedin Fashion Show, on Friday 31 March and Saturday 1 April 2023. The winners of the six awards will be announced at the Friday show.

Details of the finalists are available at https://www.idfashion.co.nz/emergingfinalists23