The Australian Fashion Foundation (AUSFF) has announced that RMIT fashion graduate Vanessa Tan has been awarded the 2020 AUSFF Scholarship Award.
In partnership with the American Australian Association (AAA), Tan will receive a USD$20,000 grant and, pending global travel restrictions, an internship with a global fashion powerhouse in the United States.
Taking to the virtual sphere to conduct the judging in 2020, the scholarship's judging panel included fashion luminaries Dion Lee founder Dion Lee, Vogue Australia creative director Jillian Davison, Zimmermann co-founder Nicky Zimmermann and former Vogue AU editor-in-chief and Australian Fashion Laureate winner Nancy Pilcher.
AUSFF co-founder Malcolm Carfrae said that despite the challenges of this year, the organisation was pleased to continue its scholarship awards.
"Despite a very challenging year for the Australian fashion industry and the many students who had to learn and work remotely, we received many world-class applications this year from students who bravely rethought how they designed and presented their work.
"There were many who could have benefited from the scholarship, kindly provided by the American Australian Association, but in the end the judges chose Vanessa Tan, a graduate of Melbourne’s RMIT as the winner.
"Her brilliantly executed and innovative collection showed the potential for garments to transcend fashion to incorporate product design and performance art," he said.
Previous AUSFF scholarship winners have undertaken internships at international fashion giants including wardrobe.nyc, Dion Lee, Narciso Rodriguez, Proenza Schouler, Louis Vuitton, Thom Browne, Alexander McQueen, DVF, and Calvin Klein.
Tan took out the award among nine other finalists: Joash Teo, Joshua Saacks, Jye Marshall, Kerry Brack, Olivia Fagan, Oscar Keene, Rosanna Li, Wai Yin Tat and Yvonne Southern.
The AUSFF Scholarship Awards are open to designers, photographers, stylists, writers, and art directors - any fashion profession that meets the criteria of eligibility.
Pictured is Tan's 'Take a Seat' series, which interrogates the relationship between objects and the body, with an emphasis placed on the need for human activation.
"The potential for garments to transcend the sphere of fashion to the realms of product design and performance art to assess fashion in a more objective manner, while understanding that we are co-authors of such aesthetic encounters," Tan said of the series.
According to the collection's abstract, 'Take a Seat' was instigated during the lockdown in Melbourne, "where the role of the interior amplified to meet our longing for comfort, familiarity, style and structure.
"With restricted public appearances during this period, our interactions with the interior only became much more intimate with the parameters of the body," the abstract said.
