It was a successful weekend for the WoolOn Creative Fashion Event with couture at The Canyon on Friday and Saturday nights (August 11-12) and a well-attended community expo on the Sunday at Central Stories Museum and Art Gallery, Alexandra Community House and St Enoch’s Church hall.

The judge’s selection of Jane Avery’s Heart Felt collection for the Supreme Award was also a favourite with the audience, with the Earnscleugh designer also taking the People’s Choice Award on both nights. The collection of two coats and a jacket were made of merino wool from Ida Valley Station, hand-felted and hand-beaded with designs inspired by the Central Otago landscape.

Jane Avery, left, poses with the models wearing her winning collection.

In a touching speech, Jane dedicated the award to her mother who she said was in her final days of life. 

She later told the Central App that she was one of a line of seamstresses in her family.

“My great-grandmother was a seamstress in Timaru and she used to push her bicycle up the farm tracks with her sewing machine,” she said. 

“Like many New Zealand women, we became lines of sewers, we passed it down the family.”

Jane said she considered herself a furrier first, and the addition of rabbit fur trims on two of her garments reflected that training. 

Seventeen-year-old Cromwell College head girl Isabella Miscisco (“call me Issy”) won the Emerging Designer School Award in her second entry to WoolOn, once again modelling her own design. 

Issy said she first took up crochet before the last WoolOn and had fallen in love with the craft. Her winning entry this year was a figure-hugging gown crocheted from merino and metallic thread yarn.

Issy Miscisco models the design that won her the Emerging Designer School Award.

Leading fashion designer Liz Mitchell MNZM joined locals Marnie Kelly (founder of Touch Yarns) and Marielle Van De Ven (creative director of ReCreate) in judging the wide range of creative garments, and the three answered questions about how they reached their decisions and all things wool on Sunday at the WoolOn Expo - a Community Celebration of Wool.

Liz said it was her first time at WoolOn, “so I was really impressed at the diversity and the range of things people have done”.

The Auckland-based designer said she had fallen in love with Central Otago while here and would definitely be back.

Liz Mitchell MNZM relaxes before the Saturday fashion show at The Canyon in Bendigo.

Vendors and community groups also took part in the expo, with workshops in felting, needle felting, weaving, spinning and rug making, taking part alongside displays of wool from the fleece to high-end products.

One of the stallholders was Gillian Shaw of Roxburgh, who had always spun, woven and knitted wool but had only taken up felting shortly before she retired. Her stall was a wonderland of tactile creativity, including a child’s book of animals with the pages and creatures made purely of felt.

“I was a farmer and I had a passion for fine fibres because we had merinos,” Gillian said.

She also used nuno felting in a lot of her work - the process of felting wool onto other fabrics.

“I’m a recycler,” Gillian said. “I stalk op shops looking for fabrics.” 

The full list of awards is: Supreme Award Runner-up - Vince Ropitini; Second Runner-up - Lucy Dolan Kang; Handcrafted - Laurel Judd; Avant Garde - Laurel Judd; Toi Tu ki Uruuruwhenua - Jenny Cairns; Streetwear - Kay Lochiel; Sustainable Wool - Lucy Dolan-Kane; Menswear - Becs Calder; Technical - Laurel Judd; Novice - Frankie Alexander-Kemble; and Young Designer Under-23 - Tom Conway.