All about the Fashion Show 2007

Our annual fashion shows are famous and eagerly awaited by staff, students, industry and lovers of fashion alike. Raffles is proud to announce that our 2007 Graduate Fashion Collections took centre stage at the Sydney Opera House on Friday November 16. In a one-off event, Raffles College was one of the official sponsors of the Fashion Group International (FGI) "Cutting Edge" conference that was held in Sydney in 2007.

FGI, established in New York in 1930, is a global organisation for industry professionals and the pre-eminent authority on the global business of fashion and design. Currently they have over 5000 members worldwide in the fashion industry in the areas of design, marketing, manufacturing, retailing, advertising and publishing.  Of the 38 chapters around the world, FGI Sydney is an award-winning chapter that has been recognised for its outstanding leadership in innovative programming. The Sydney branch celebrated its 40^th anniversary in 2007.

FGI provides a high-profile forum to promote the fashion, beauty, design and lifestyle industries. FGI events and programs bring together international speakers and industry leaders to address the state of business in the fashion industries. They are attended by the most influential people in the fashion and related industries. For the first time in its 75-year history, the conference took place in the Southern Hemisphere. Additionally, the Cutting Edge conference was the only international event of its type in 2007 for the Australian fashion industry, directed towards the "business of fashion".

As major sponsors of the FGI event, Raffles College secured the unique privilege of being the only fashion school in Australia to exhibit student work to the conference delegates. Our student garments were paraded before the international delegates at a special VIP "salon" showing during their conference gala event titled Ballet, Boutique Fashion and Fine Dining at the Sydney Opera House.

In the lead up to the salon showing, Raffles College held two separate fashion shows in the iconic Utzon Room at the Sydney Opera House. These invitation-only events were an opportunity for students to exhibit their work to an audience made up of their peers, local media and industry guests. 

For this show, the heady mix of garment styles and product categories included:

• our now famous hand-draped/hand-knitted knitwear and jerseys, called "Experimental Structures"
• resortwear inspired by 1950s Italian cinema
• cocktail dressing, born out of student visits to the Australian Museum's flora, fauna and mineral collections
• demi-couture inspired by DADA
• ready-to-wear de luxe ranges which draw upon the etchings and print collections (1880-1930's) held at the Art Gallery of NSW
• conceptual eveningwear which celebrated the wondrous creations of international architects such as Harry Seidler, Jorn Utzon and Zaha Hadid

Collectively, we labelled the range "Homage to Australia", as a tribute to the various Aussie icons of design who inspired our local and international student body in 2007. These collections, both conceptual and commercial in nature, marked the beginning of student fashion show season and were a great way to celebrate a highly productive year of design here at Raffles.

There were 3 shows in total:

Show 1 - 6.30pm  (Utzon Room)
For exhibiting fashion students (+ 1 guest) and other all other fashion students

Show 2 - 8.30pm  (Utzon Room)
For exhibiting fashion students, RCDC staff, industry guests and media

Show 3 - 10.00pm  (Guillaume Restaurant)
Dinner sponsorship of FGI conference with salon showing of garments
RCDC have 4 seats at the dinner for VIP guests

Our previous fashion shows were held as part of our Annual Graduation events, but in 2007 we decided to do something quite different and special. The graduation, usually a part of the fashion show was held as a special event in July 2007 at the Sydney Town Hall, following on from a student graduate exhibition launched at our campus the same week. In future, our fashion shows will continue to be stand-alone events.