Global fast fashion giant Shein has awarded thousands of dollars to three Melbourne fashion design students as part of its inaugural Australian ‘R.I.S.E. Student Designer Challenge’ competition.
Elian Yang from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology won the top spot, securing a place in the ‘Shein x Designer Incubator Program’. According to Shein, this program allows designers to leverage the fast fashion platform's on-demand supply chain, as well as its fabric library, marketing and publicity support, to launch global collections.
Alongside her $10,000 prize, Yang will also gain mentoring experience from Australian designer Alice McCall.
Priya Maharjan from Stott’s College took out second prize of $5,000 and Cute Souls from the University of Melbourne took third prize of $3,000.
The runway show and awards ceremony last week followed a series of masterclasses where 20 finalists in the competition were able to develop their designs to be catwalk-ready under professional mentorship.
The theme for this year’s competition was ‘retro-futurism’. McCall was tapped to be the judge for the competition, alongside LCI Melbourne fashion programme head Angelo Pantalone, and author and advocate for arts and culture in Australia, Esther Anatolitis.
“The judges were very impressed with the creativity and vision of the students and, as expected, the decision was extremely difficult,” McCall said.
“It was wonderful to see so much enthusiasm and passion amongst these young designers. I am sure all of them will have benefitted from the experience and the support they received as they brought their designs to life and saw them paraded at the runway show.”
The R.I.S.E. Challenge was open to any student over 18 years of age and enrolled in tertiary education across Australia.
A spokesperson for Shein said the competition aims to empower the next generation of Australian fashion designers.
“The runway show was a magnificent display of young Australian talent and demonstrated the creativity and technical skills of the finalists,” they said.
“In only the first year of the competition, the variety of talent and skills displayed on the night were remarkable.
“The runway gave insight into the potential future talent of the Australian fashion industry, with the competition giving students a platform to shine.”