SYDNEY – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander creatives were celebrated at the third annual National Indigenous Fashion Awards, which were announced in Darwin, Northern Territory on Wednesday.
Staged at the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair – Australia’s largest First Nations visual art event, showcasing work from more than 75 Indigenous art centers – the awards recognize and showcase excellence in the categories of fashion and textile design, business, traditional ornaments, costume art and community collaboration.
Melbourne-based Wiradjuri woman Deni Francisco took home the designer award for the second year in a row, winning her 12-month business mentorships with Australian retail chain Country Road.
The Business Achievement Award went to Laura Thompson, the Gunditjmara co-founder of Melbourne-based Clothing the Gaps, an Aboriginal social enterprise and certified B Corp that specializes in streetwear emblazoned with activist slogans such as “Aboriginal Land – Tread Lightly” and “Always Was, Always Will Be”, a key slogan of the Australian indigenous land rights movement. The brand name is a play on Closing the Gap, an Australian federal government health initiative to help closing the life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
Models on display from NIFA Business Achievement Award winner Clothing the Gaps during the First Nations Fashion and Design Group Showcase at Afterpay Australian Fashion Week on May 13.
Mark Metcalfe
Esther Yarllarlla, a Kunibidji artist working with the Bábbara Women’s Center in Maningrida, Northern Territory, won the Traditional Adornment Award for her women’s Mókko, a traditional skirt made of hand-tied “bush rope”, while the Award of Community Cooperation went to Yankunytjara. artist Linda The work of collective Mimili Maku Arts located on APY Lands (Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands, a local government area for Aboriginal people) and Melbourne-based vegan brand Unreal Fur, for their collaborative collection of jackets and coats puffer. .
The Textile Design Award went to Gunggandji and Kuku Yalanji, master weaver Philomena Yeatman, for her linen print “Yulu Dreaming” featuring images of stingrays and incorporated into a pair of trousers and a blouse made by seamstresses at Yarrabah Arts & Cultural Precinct in Far North Queensland where Yeatman is based. Best known for her baskets and mats, which are woven from pandanus leaves and can take anywhere from two weeks to six months to produce, Yeatman created some mini basket earrings to go with the look.
Esther Yarllarla (second from right), winner of the Traditional Adornment Award, accompanied by fellow artist from the Bábbara Women’s Centre, at the 2022 National Indigenous Fashion Awards in Darwin, Australia.
Dylan Buckee
Narrandera, New South Wales-based artist and textile designer Lillardia Briggs-Houston, a Wiradjuri, Yorta Yorta and Gangulu woman, won the Wearable Art Award for her hand-painted merino wool knitted costume, which it is decorated with two-meter river reeds. are hand-stitched at the neck, a hand-dyed hem and finished with a printed veil to match the head.
The panel consisted of Yatu Widders-Hunt, a Dunghutti and Anaiwan woman who is a director at Sydney-based specialist Indigenous communications agency Cox Inall Ridgeway; NIFA Creative Director and Designer Perina Drummond, a Meriam Mer woman who is also the founder of Australia’s first Indigenous modeling agency Jira Models; Australian Fashion Council head of marketing and communications Prue-Ellen Thomas and Country Road womenswear design manager Jacklyn Rivera.
“[NIFA] it has really illuminated the diversity of practice that exists within the First Nations fashion community and people working in remote areas,” said Widders-Hunt. “It celebrates things that I think are really important to the industry, like collaborations, the art of dressing, respectful storytelling, sustainability. It’s not just about the craft.”
