SYDNEY — Pageant has won the Tiffany & Co. National Designer Award at the Melbourne Fashion Festival.
At a cocktail event at Tiffany & Co.’s Collins Street flagship on Monday, the five-year-old Melbourne-based brand beat four other finalists — Bul, Emma Mulholland, Macgraw and Verner — to take home a prize package valued at more than 100,000 Australian dollars, or $76,335 at current exchange, including 10,000 Australian dollars, or $7,633, in cash; a return trip to New York, and mentorships with Matchesfashion.com and Australian venture capitalist Larry Kestelman, the founder of Dodo Internet.
Pageant was founded in 2010 by two RMIT fashion graduates, Kate Reynolds and Amanda Cumming, initially as a men’s wear label. The two longtime friends established their own company after they spent two years interning and working in London for brands such as Christopher Shannon, Christopher Kane and Cassette Playa. A women’s wear collection was added in 2013, after the duo crowdfunded the additional production costs via a campaign on the Pozible platform in December 2012, raising 10,040 Australian dollars, or $9,652 at December 2012 exchange.
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With high-tech fabrics and athletic trims, Pageant takes its cues from modern sports clothing. The fall collection, called “Ladies,” was inspired by Japanese Bosozoku biker gang girls and features denim, camouflage nylon and PVC. Prices range from 175 Australian dollars ($134) for a turtleneck 3-D cotton knit T-shirt to 950 Australian dollars ($725) for a woollen biker jacket with kimono sleeves and iron-on Swarovski crystals.
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The brand is carried by six stores in Australia as well as the Broad Meadows boutique in New York.
“We’re steadily growing, but I think the next step for us is to really go into the international market and we feel like there’s a lot of potential there, and we also feel that winning this prize will give us that opportunity, in terms of the connections that we’ve made, the mentoring programs, also the flights overseas,” Cumming said.
Now in its 19th year, the National Designer Award has helped ignite the careers of, among others, Josh Goot, Dion Lee, Romance Was Born, Toni Maticevski, Christopher Esber and Strateas.Carlucci.
After winning the 2014 award, Strateas.Carlucci duo Peter Strateas and Mario-Luca Carlucci were subsequently named the Australian finalists in both the women’s wear and inaugural men’s wear categories of the 2014/2015 International Woolmark Prize and will compete in Beijing on Tuesday for the IWP women’s wear final.
Running until March 22 at a central runway pavilion at the Melbourne Docklands and other venues throughout the city, the 19-year-old Melbourne Fashion Festival is Australia’s largest consumer-focused fashion event. The speaker lineup for the 2015 Business Seminar on Tuesday includes Levi’s president James Curleigh, Georg Jensen chief executive officer and creative director David Chu, Matchesfashion.com cofounder Ruth Chapman and Être Cécile cofounder Jemma Dyas.