Culture

Historically speaking, art and fashion vastly overlap and often seamlessly influence each other. What initially comes to mind is Manet’s portraits of fashionable Parisian life in the late nineteenth century, Salvador Dali’s extensive collaborations with fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, Andy Warhol’s work as a fashion illustrator (and later, his Bonwit Teller window display, cleverly entitled “Pop into spring”) and Yves Saint Laurent’s “Mondrian” dress. In more recent times, think of Viktor & Rolf’s battle-ready Autumn/Winter 2011 collection and the Russian Illusionist-inspired Autumn/Winter 11 Paco Rabanne collection by new creative director Manish Arora. These collections continue to highlight the way in which fashion blurs the apparent distinction between art, fashion and performance.
After the excitement of New York, London, Paris and Milan fashion weeks, the international fashion community turns its head to the bottom of the world, as Dunedin plays host to the twelfth annual iD Fashion Week. I am incredibly excited to discover whether the way in which I view fashion correlates with the way I view art or performance, as to me they are all interchangeable media. iD is a week where this small city of youth and creativity is seemingly bombarded with a flurry of global talent, all wishing to either launch careers or solidify their work amongst peers and the wider fashion community. iD Fashion Week celebrates the distinct cultural environment within Dunedin as well as providing an open platform for young designers to really experiment and establish themselves.
 

The event itself is a series of accessible fashion and retail events throughout the city designed to create an experience that is unique in both its intimacy and its openness to everyone. Now in its twelfth year, the iD Dunedin fashion show will feature over sixteen local designers, including high-profile local names NOM*D, Lela Jacobs, Richard More, Twenty-Seven Names, Company of Strangers and Carlson. Having viewed Twenty-Seven Names’ preppy and nostalgically 90's “Fearsome Five” and Dunedin brand NOM*D's bubonic plague-inspired “Dance Macabre” Fall 11 collections online, it will be fantastic to see these collections strutting down the 110 metre long runway at the famous Dunedin railway station. Also included in the show is upcoming talent from Dunedin's local fashion school, such as Amelia Boland and Rachel Webb.

 
Fresh from showing his Fall 11 collection at Paris Fashion week, internationally renowned Australian designer Akira Isogawa will star as a guest judge at the iD International Emerging Designer’s show. Japanese-born Isogawa is noted as an extremely versatile and innovative designer, who is well respected within the industry because of his immaculate pattern making skills and bold, yet informed, use of textiles. His light-as-air, heavily embellished ombré collection will be shown on the runway at the iD fashion shows on Friday April 8 and Saturday April 9. There will also be a public lecture about him on Thursday April 7, 12;00 -12:50pm at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery (DPAG). Last year flamboyant British designer Zhandra Rohdes judged the event. If you haven’t got a ticket to any of the fashion shows, there are plenty of free events for you to attend, including; public lecture: Akira Isogwawa (DPAG, Thursday April 7, 12pm), public lecture: Charlotte Smith (curator of the Darnell collection, DPAG, Friday April 8, 11am), designer promotion: Kathryn Wilson, Vaughan Geeson, Richard Moore and Tamsin Cooper (Waughs Instore, Friday April 8, 12:30pm), “Jealous” (Dunedin co-conspirators Sara Aspinall and Anne Mieke Ytsma, A Gallery, Friday April 8, 5-7pm) , “The catwalk as creative front line” (discussion, Blue Oyster Art Gallery, Sunday April 10 1pm), fashion talk: Dr Jane Malthus (DPAG, Friday April 8, 3pm). For more information about what’s on, check out www.idfashion.co.nz.