Australian womenswear brand Dissh has awarded a $15,000 tuition grant to Nathalie Coronado Quispe (They/Them) who is studying a Bachelor of Fashion Design at Queensland University of Technology.
It forms part of Dissh’s Pride Scholarship program, now in its second year. Fashion students have been submitting applications to win a grant towards their study costs, with the winner chosen by a panel of the Dissh team including its founder Lucy Henry-Hicks.
The program takes place during the month of June, internationally recognised as Pride Month to honour the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan, New York.
The selection process took six weeks, with Quispe being chosen for their representation of Dissh’s ‘why’ behind the scholarship, and as someone “destined to make big waves in the fashion industry.”
“It means so much, feeling like I'm finally finding a place in fashion where I feel like I belong and having my work, or even my existence as a queer person, validated and feeling like I have meaning,” Quispe said.
Henry-Hicks added that Dissh’s collective mission is to use its platform to positively influence the wider community.
“During pride month our aim is to educate our people on the continued social issues faced by the community and what we can do to make a difference, whilst acknowledging the connective tissue between LGBTQIA+ history and the fashion industry.”
Last year’s Pride Scholarship winner, Sydney-based creative director Blake Sutherland, recently graduated from Whitehouse Institute of Design and went on to win the Australian Fashion Foundation’s Scholarship Award.