The Sunshine Coast is set to host an exciting and unique intersection of art, fashion and costumery with the return of a premier festival.
This year, 39 national and international wearable art pieces will come alive on the Australian Wearable Art Festival’s 27-metre-long catwalk.
A fresh wave of wearable art talent from across the globe is set to unveil the latest genre-bending creations to audiences on August 9 and 10.
The event will transform the Sunshine Coast’s Venue 114 into a creative mecca for art enthusiasts, fashion mavericks and creative minds alike.
Categories include trashion, sustainable nature, floriana and avant-garde.
Australian Wearable Art Festival (AWAF) curator Wendy Roe said the Sunshine Coast-grown event, which held its first show in Eumundi in 2019, had gone from strength to strength in recent years.
She said it highlighted a nationwide enthusiasm for arts and cultural festivals.
“Last year’s attendees raved about the excitement and spectacle of the catwalk, where sculptural artworks are like something you would see at the Met Gala or at a runway in Paris Fashion Week,” Ms Roe said.
“There has been such momentum created around this event that our 39 finalists hail from across the continents – Europe, South-East Asia and the United States – as well as a continued strong representation from across Australia.”
Ms Roe said that from the moment guests arrived at the gala event, they would be immersed in a world of wearable art where any found object – from ring-pull tabs, bicycle tyres, flowers, teabags and feathers – are transformed into haute couture.
“With a 27-metre runway, there’s the jaw-dropping performative aspect of the event but there are also more tactile opportunities for attendees to experience the detail of the work, understand the hours of work involved in the creation and talk with the artists about their process,” she said.
“It’s a unique combination and one that has audiences walking away feeling electrified and inspired.”
Ms Roe believed the festival’s success was rooted in an authentically delivered showcase that connected audiences and artists.
“As a meeting point of art, fashion, costuming and technology, the festival fills a particular niche in the national art landscape,” Ms Roe said.
“It’s designed as an opportunity to connect wearable artists and designers to industry.
“There are few events where relatively unknown artists can gain national exposure on the scale we see at Australian Wearable Art Festival.
“It’s a chance, especially for emerging artists, to have their works shown and our audiences are able to revel in an unbridled level of creativity that occurs when experimental creative minds blend genres and mediums.”
Brisbane-based artist and last year’s AWAF Supreme Winner Isabelle Cameron has again been selected as a finalist in this year’s festival with her piece Stardust.
Her crochet piece Dear Babushka, inspired by her Ukrainian heritage, took home three prizes in 2023.
“If Dear Babushka was a love letter to my heritage and to the women who came before me, Stardust is me – raw, awkward, honest and silly,” Ms Cameron said.
“Stardust tells a story of a crochet sea monster plucked from the seaweed – for the first time the world sees them for exactly who they are and that is terrifying.”
Incorporating movement and volume with exaggerated limbs, a high-contrast colourway and a ruffled, crocheted mohawk, this year’s piece will be a continuation of Ms Cameron’s practice that challenges public perceptions of crochet.
“Crochet has always been underestimated in fashion and it’s time to change that,” Ms Cameron said.
Visit the Australian Wearable Art Festival website for tickets.
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