Designer Julie Shaw hopes winning the inaugural National Indigenous Fashion Awards will take Aboriginal fashion to a wider audience.Credit:Rhett Wyman
Shaw,a Yuwaalaraay woman and graduate of the University of Technology Sydney,has won two out of the six categories in the inaugural National Indigenous Fashion Awards,held via an online and TV broadcast on Wednesday night.
Due to COVID-19,the awards were unable to go ahead as intended at the annual Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair,which has beenbuilding the profile of Indigenous designers for several years. Still,Shaw hopes they will help boost consumer awareness and engagement with Aboriginal design and fashion.
A model wears a design by Shaw's label,Maara Collective.
"For so long,Indigenous designers and fashion were thought of as small run,that really tourist-driven,'market'product,or stocked in a museum or art gallery store,"she says."It’s not all about dot paintings and dot artworks."
Shaw says social issues such as the Black Lives Matter movement,as well as consumer concerns around sustainability,are helping to drive increased interest in Indigenous-owned businesses in fashion and more broadly.
"People have time[during the pandemic] to be researching and coming across new brands and businesses and if they feel connected to it,they will engage,"she says.
Shaw's Maara Collective label incorporates traditional Aboriginal weaving techniques and prints to create garments that are,in her words,"elegant,refined and beautifully designed"– and effortlessly contemporary.