TAFE students put extravagant fashion on show

The exhibition features 18 visionary student wearable art and floristry designs selected for their exploration of fabrications, silhouette and form using innovative materials.

The initiative is part of the City of Mandurah Wearable Art competition, which attracts state, national and international entries every year.

This year, seven South Metro TAFE fashion students will be taking part in the Wearable Art showcase, competing against 200 entries. 

Fashion student Pam Prince’s wearable art creation is one of the 18 garments selected for the exhibition. 

Her piece represents coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef and the danger of marine wildlife ingesting plastic bags.

The dress has been created only with recycled materials, using crocheted plastic bags to make the body of the garment and melted plastic bottles to make the colourful beads and headpiece.

“There’s not one product that I actually bought, everything was made,” Ms Prince said. 

“It took about 200 hours.”

Ms Prince said she was blown away to be part of the exhibition, since it was her first attempt at creating a wearable art piece.

“I was surprised that at my age with all the young people and their creativity I actually got selected for this exhibition,” she said.

“It blew me away a little bit.”

Ms Prince, who would like to set up her own fashion business, said she was already thinking what to create for next year’s showcase.

Rebekah Grimlinger’s garment combines cultural pride, history and tradition in a single dress.

The passionate fashion student got the inspiration for her garment from WA’s Kimberley region, combining traditional Aboriginal weaving techniques and materials to pay a tribute to the region’s traditional land owners.

The body of the dress features weaved palm tree leaves to create an intricate pattern while the coffee-dipped skirt represents the Aboriginal link to country. 

“It’s basically to just bring us all back to remembering and respecting the Aboriginal community, because I think we forget that a lot,” Ms Grimlinger said.

“Specially for the Oceania theme, a lot of people have gone for the ocean per se but I thought it was important just to think of other ways of how to remember it and the traditional ways.”

Ms Grimlinger, who is the daughter of a Mandurah-based dressmaker, would like to create her own lingerie line in the future, however she doesn’t rule out the possibility to participate in the Wearable Art competition next year.

“It’s definitely a passion and I really enjoy it,” she said.

Final year fashion student Marianna Kuklinska found the inspiration for her wearable art garment in 3D printing and melting wax.

Her garment represents two large flames wrapped around the body resembling the wax of a candle.

“I like to focus on playing with art as fashion as well, so instead of using a normal fabric I was interested in using technology and 3D printing, but 3D printing is fairly expensive and you need to know a lot behind all the technology of it as well to construct it,” she said.

“So I thought using a hot glue gun would be interesting and different, an unconventional way of creating a structural art piece as well as molding that on the body.”

She made the garment by creating several layers of glue, using a mannequin to model the lace-like pattern around the bust, and hanging the flames upside down to get a dripping pattern.

“You sit there dripping and dripping for hours and before you know it time just flies by,” she said.

“It’s quite fun though, it was therapeutic in a way.

“It’s my last year so I wanted to have fun with it, play with it and do something different.”

Ms Kuklinska would like to work for a fashion company before stating her own label. 

The South Metro TAFE wearable art exhibition will run from June 6 to 11 at the Mandurah Performing Arts Centre foyer and it’s free of charge.