Fashion buzz for Bay of Plenty

Bay of Plenty fashionistas were treated to a little bit of New York on Saturday night when Bay of Plenty Polytechnic hosted their annual Infuse Fashion Show.

The basement of the Polytechnic’s city-based Bongard Centre was transformed under some clever lighting and a lot of hard work into a true grunge-styled basement catwalk show.

More than 200 garments worn by 65 models glided around the catwalk with a stunning diversity of garments inspired by everything from the Beatles and the Seven Deadly Sins through to Queen Elizabeth I and Nuclear Disarmament.

Sarah Gifford was awarded Supreme Designer 2012 (Year 3 Bachelor of Design (Fashion)) with her stunning Inhospitable Worlds collection with Rie Ozawa being awarded Highly Commended in the same section with her Venus is Born collection.

Elle Lloyd was awarded Supreme Designer 2012 (Year 2 Diploma in Design (Fashion)) with her Miracle Virgin collection and Lulu Jackson was awarded Highly Commended in the same section with her Welcome Stranger collection.

Judges, John Beech (Garden & Artfest Director) and Veronica Keucke and Lilia Cass (the design and production team at Sisters), found it extremely difficult to choose the supreme winners in each category due to the high level of technical expertise and the diversity of the collection inspirations.

“It was a pleasure to judge the collections,” said Veronica. 

“The winners on the night showed clever concepts, quality execution and a freshness of ideas that presented well on the catwalk as a complete and unified collection.”

"I really look forward to seeing more from these students in the future."