Ten emerging designers – average age 22 – selected to open 4 shows at NZ Fashion Week 2015 with JUICY new looks and a chance to win top prize

Nudging fashion’s obsession with black, the Resene NZ Fashion Tech Colour of Fashion collection is bringing colour extremes to the runway at New Zealand Fashion Week for the second year.

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Resene keeps exploring fresh, eye-catching ways to bring its fashion colours to life, while also giving unique opportunities to young Kiwis keen to exhibit their design talent – in colour.

So, the latest on-trend Resene paint colours with names like Smooch, Freefall, Juicy and Kakapo, are expressed as contemporary fashion in the 2015 Resene NZ Fashion Tech Colour of Fashion collection.

Ten stunning looks, designed and made from hand-woven Indian silk saris by Diploma students at NZ Fashion Tech – five from Auckland and five from Wellington - as part of their academic course work, open four Resene-sponsored public shows at New Zealand Fashion Week.

Audiences will see a very cool collision of Resene’s new-season paint colours, exciting young designers from NZ Fashion Tech with no creative limitations, and the colour imaginings of India - a nation whose zest for colour has long been woven into beautiful fabric.

The garments are of a quality and inventiveness which would confidently hold their own on any fashion runway, according to leading New Zealand fashion curator and judge for the 2015 Resene NZ Fashion Tech Colour of Fashion collection Doris de Pont. Following a successful career as an internationally recognised fashion designer, Doris de Pont became a foundation trustee of the NZ Fashion Museum and the curator of six fashion exhibitions including the award winning Home Sewn which toured New Zealand attracting over 96,000 visitors. In January 2013 she was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for Services to Fashion.

A winning design will be chosen by a panel of judges and Resene will give the winning designer the opportunity to attend ID Dunedin Fashion Week in March 2016, fast becoming the ultimate shop-window for emerging talent in fashion design.

It takes a village to weave 50 saris for fashion project

It was May 2014 when NZ Fashion Tech Diploma students were first asked to create a work of fashion from hand-woven silk for the Resene NZ Fashion Tech Colour of Fashion project.

The 50 silk saris for the project were created by families of weavers working with ancient looms in their homes in a southern Indian sari village called Doddampalayam, just outside of Sathyamangalam 70kms from the city of Coimbatore.

Once showcased in New Zealand – at New Zealand Fashion Week, in magazines and on websites – 15 patterns were taken to India by the NZ Fashion Tech students who had won Prime Minister’s Scholarships for Asia.

As part of five weeks of collaborative learning in India in November / December in 2014, arranged by the Giles Brooker Group who lead New Zealand-India education exchanges in the tertiary sector, the 15 NZ Fashion Tech students re-created the garments from a new silk sari for a 'grande finale' fashion show hosted by the Bannari Amman Institute of Technology at their vast and modern university campus in Sathyamangalam.

All of the Kiwi fashion students dressed head-to-toe in traditional Indian fashion. The girls wore saris and the boys wore dhoti. Even though it was western fashion that had brought the New Zealand students here, their experience has been described as "five weeks of awesome" and they wanted to give back by dressing the Indian way.

In 2015, NZ Fashion Tech has won 20 Prime Minister’s Scholarships for Asia. So 20 looks made from silk saris, including some seen on the catwalk in Auckland in August, will be seen again on the catwalk in India this December.

NZ Fashion Tech student Taylor Jarden-Lambert (22) who travelled to India last year with the group said five weeks of learning in India was a life-changing, "mind-blowing" experience.

Taylor says: "The people were so welcoming and hospitable. The strongest memory for me is how lovely they were."

"And the learning that I think will have the most positive impact for me in my career in fashion was seeing large scale manufacturing in practice. We now have a unique, first-hand view of manufacturing fashion garments off-shore," he says.

Director of NZ Fashion Tech Val Marshall-Smith says: "Taylor’s response to the experience epitomises that of the group. The totality of the experience was so immense and empowering for all 15 students we’re certain it will enhance their careers and their lives in many different ways. We are looking forward to watching their careers with great interest".

Home of the silks

Doddampalayam is the village just outside of Sathyamangalam in Southern India where the silk saris being used in this project were hand-woven (70kms from the city of Coimbatore.)

Garments created by NZ Fashion Tech students inspired by Resene colours and featured in Next magazine