Margie Maccoll
Eighteen-year-old Noosa designer Teddy McRitchie took to the catwalk at the Australian Wearable Art Festival at Bokarina on 21 May to showcase his stunning Queen Bee entry and accept the award for Best Headpiece.
Teddy began designing wearable art while a high school student, entering them into the wearable art section at the Body Art Festival in Cooroy.
There his designs captured the attention of representatives of the Australian Wearable Art Festival and in 2019 his design at the national festival won the best student award.
However, Covid has put a stop to festivals since then with everything shutdown for the past two years.
But this year the festival has again been able to go ahead with about 35 entries from across Australia, Singapore and the US although, sadly, others from South America and New Zealand were unable to make it due to Covid issues.
“It was such an amazing event,“ Teddy said.
“There was an audience of about 1000 people attending in two shows – day and night.“
Teddy spent countless hours over a few months to create his piece, titled Queen Bee, that was inspired by bees – the decline of the bee population and the importance of bees to the whole world.
“I wanted to create a little awareness of the importance of bees,“ he said.
His headpiece was a creative take on a traditional bee keeper veil with a honeycomb-like veil, topped with a gigantic bee.
“It’s quite bright and eye-catching,“ he said.
The outfit was modelled by Georgie Phillips who wore the winning entry at the last wearable art festival in 2019.
“She was an amazing model. I was so lucky to have her. There are always things that can go wrong but she kept it all together and told the story of the art piece,“ Teddy said.
Having graduated from Year 12 last year with his senior years impacted by Covid, Teddy has taken a gap year to “do things to feed my heart“ and further his passion in design.
This month he will travel to Tasmania for the Paper on Skin Wearable Art event to showcase his entry in the competition that embraces the challenge of designing a wearable garment made from at least 80 per cent paper.
Also in the spotlight at the Australian Wearable Art Festival was former Gympie Arts Ambassador and couturier to musical artists, Cindy Vogels, who was one of three judges for the event held last weekend on the Sunshine Coast.
Ms Vogels shot to international fame when pop-music superstar Lady Gaga wore one of her hat designs in a duet with music legend Tony Bennett in 2014.
At the event, Ms Vogels was put to work judging the national and international entries which took to the runway.
Other category winners included Haute Couture: Galina Mihaleva with Tectumque, Emerging Wearable artist: David Bongiorno, Supreme winner: Evita Camilleri and Dan Draper with Water Memory for the Arid Soul, Trashion: Denise Lamby with Warrior Princess, Sustainable Nature: Eloise Galea with Rhea Nova and Floriana: Karen Jones with Le Fleurs De Marie Antoinette.
