The Perth Fashion Festival finished up last week with the WA Fashion Awards. 13 winners were nominated and voted for by members of the fashion industry – so it was very exciting to see the results.

The biggest award for the night, Most Innovative WA Designer, went to Alison Cotton for Joveeba (pictured left below).

I was not surprised that she won, as her label has gone from strength to strength in a relatively short period of time, and each of her collections have been strong, bold and versatile. I featured some of Joveeba’s latest collection here.

Designer for Tomorrow was awarded to Paper Skye by Kirsten Shadbolt, pictured centre above. And the Fine Details award went to Sophie Kyron, pictured right above. I am not very familiar with these two designers, but their stuff looks fantastic! I certainly hope to take a closer look at some of their work in the near future.

I also really enjoyed the Student Categories, there were so many strong designs showing great talent and potential. These ones particularly caught my eye, and were all winners or runner-ups in their particular categories.

Pictured left – Andrea Wolf.  Pictured centre and right – Ellie Meyer.

Katie Bell (pictured left) won the Student Costume Couture category with lovely layers and teaming of sheer fabrics. But I must admit, in the same category, I preferred Jeromy Lin’s piece (pictured right). I could so see that coming down an international catwalk. The mood of his whole collection was communicated in that one concept piece. It’s unfortunately not quite clear from this picture, but the the green neck-piece/hood was made of raw silk with an amazingly subtle organic-look print, and it was all scrunched up. The addition of the gas-mask prop made the concept all the more stand-out.

Overall, the WA Fashion Awards was a fun night out. It was great to see the industry coming together to celebrate fashion!

All images by Stefan Gosatti – Official Photographer to the Festival. Check out his brand new website for a more complete and up-to-date photo coverage of all the events!