Brisbane-based artist Isabelle Cameron emerged victorious at this year’s Australian Wearable Art Festival, taking home the Festival’s highest honour for the second year in a row, Supreme Winner, at the gala night held on the Sunshine Coast.
The Australian Wearable Art Festival, a collision of art and fashion, concluded its highly anticipated event on Saturday night, showcasing a spectacular display of 38 national and international boundary-pushing wearable artworks.
Isabelle, whose outstanding crochet piece, entered in the Avant Garde category, ultimately took home three prizes for her piece ‘Stardust’ – the Supreme Winner, the Avant Garde category winner and one of four artists chosen to be featured in the Textile Fibre Forum magazine.
Judges Jacinta Giles, QAGOMA curator, and Julia Rose, renowned floral wearable artist, said that of the 38 entries in the festival, each showcasing the artists’ talents and stories, Isabelle’s piece stood out as it delivered a high level of technical skill with a fresh and innovative design.’
“The piece engaged the audience through a sense of joy and cheekiness and moved seamlessly on the model,” Dr Giles said.
The symbology of Stardust represents the artist unmasking and expressing autistic joy, embodying both terror and beauty. The piece encourages you to embrace your true self. Using crochet as her technique, Isabelle showcases this often underestimated and under-created craft as fun, daring, dynamic and limitless.
With participants hailing from all corners of the world, including Romania, Japan, the United States, and across Australia, the event demonstrated its reputation as a growing international art and fashion spectacle.
Among the festival’s four main categories —Trashion, Sustainable Nature, Floriana, and Avant Garde— the audience witnessed spectacular works made from plastic waterbottles, inner tubes of bicycle tires, 3D printing and flowers.
Local Sunshine Coast-based artist, Viera Keogh was overwhelmed to take home the People’s Choice Award – a new award for 2024, Best Headpiece and also the winner of the Floriana category.
“This piece is a heartfelt protest inspired by the peaceful Velvet Revolution in Slovakia and my aim is to show that victory can be achieved without weapons,” Viera said.
“I spent most of last year growing and drying flowers from my home for this entry and I am so pleased to have my work recognised in this way.”
Australian Wearable Art Festival will return in 2025 with dates set for 8-9 August.
For more information about the festival, visit australianwearableart.com.au
