Despair to joy for emerging designer

A collection inspired by her battle with depression, has won Marie Kelly a top prize at the iD International Emerging Designer Awards in Dunedin and entry to a prestigious fashion event in Italy.

The 22 year-old fashion design student, who next month graduates from the University’s College of Creative Arts, used her struggle with the illness in her work that last night saw her awarded the Mittelmoda Prize. She now has direct entry to show at the Mittelmoda Fashion competition in Gorizia, Italy. A $600 contribution from Haier was also part of the prize.

Mittelmoda Fashion Award project supervisor Stefano Sopelza said all of the designers incorporated their artistic roots as artists, illustrators and photographers into their work, with Ms Kelly’s being a standout.

“Marie Kelly’s collection showed a European influence, had enormous character, and truly reflected her inspiration based on her experience with depression.”

Ms Kelly, who is originally from Napier, designed a collection of menswear and women’s clothing, with the four different garments designed to reflect the four stages of her two-year battle with depression. She describes them as “four levels of severity”, going from simply having a bad day, to closing yourself off to friends and family, to experiencing a persistent suffocating feeling and finally, experiencing the sensation of drowning.

“One technique used allows the fabric to expand and create a rippling effect which reflects my fear of water,” she says.

All the models exhibiting her clothing wore black and had their faces covered. This was symbolic of people with depression who did not feel they have a voice, she says. “ A lot of people find it hard to grasp the concept of depression and creating something visually simplifies it for them.”

Ms Kelly expressed amazement at her success. “I was quite shocked, I didn’t really know the details of the prize that well and that part of the award was that I get to go to Italy.”

Now in its seventh year, the iD International Emerging Designer Awards attracted 120 entries from 20 countries. The only fashion competition of its kind in New Zealand, it offers an international platform for rising national and international fashion design talent.