What a delight for everyone involved! Remarks like ‘That's fabulous’, ‘Have you seen this one?’ and ‘Wow... Fantastic!’ were frequent. Truly, the entry photos are an absolute treat – for visual splendour – for the fun and clever and diverse design ideas – ­­ for the so often impressive craftsmanship – and because so many entrants were clearly enamoured of the ocean creatures that they had named as inspirations. Jellyfish species were a particular favourite, but other ocean creatures were also represented among the entries that were set out on tables across the judging room.

The judges took hours to move around this room, in part because they kept marvelling over images of these creatures. But also, there were lots of entries to read and the judges clearly wanted to do justice to the creative effort that has gone into these entries, by carefully considering every one. We thank these judges for being so generous with their time.

Each entry was scored on these equally weighted criteria: Originality; Style (including the incorporation of deep ocean inspiration); Proportion of materials that were originally used for a non-clothing purpose; Craftsmanship. Once all the scoring and totalling was finally done, the top ten scoring entrants in each category were identified.

Those entrants have been contacted. To secure their place as a finalist, they need to confirm that they can attend the Fashion Less Waste parade on the 26th July. The list of finalists so far is...

High School Category

Bonita Poppy Alexander
Georgina Craig
Georgia Fallon
Yianna Georgiou
Eden Lim
Mia McNeill & Samara Hyde Page
Edwina Sharpe
Rachelle Sleiman
Tess Tavener Hanks

Open Category

Marnie Barczak
Anne Hortense
Mia Nicole Johnson
Jessica Kieft
Mandy King
Annelyse Lumley
Joseph Mashett
Stephanie Powell
Tito Stowers
Karolina Venter

Stay tuned for the full and final list …