Tuesday 15 May 2012

Audi Star Creation Finalists’ Showdown and announcing the winners

After 6 weeks of posting twice a week interviews with the 12 finalists of Audi Star Creation, I was excited to finally see their sketches transformed to reality on the runway.
In fact as each collection came down the runway I felt as if I knew the designer and the clothing intimately.

But in the end it was a competition and there had to be winners and losers.

The winners were announced at the end of the show and they were Roderic Wong from China, Soravit Kaewkamon from Thailand and Ko Youngji from South Korea. And there was also a People’s Choice Award which went to Natalia Kiantoro from Indonesia.

Do they look familiar? If you've been reading the interviews
on this blog, then you've probably seen the sketches!

The winners of Star Creation: Ko Youngji, Roderic Wong andSoravit Kaewkamon  

While Roderic Wong’s collection ‘Tissue of Being’ was a clear winner and a unanimous choice with the judges (and as far as I saw, from the audience as well!), there were definitely few surprises in the results.

Personally I felt that despite there being some very cool and original collections like Tatsuya Tsukahara’s ‘Braiding and Kim Soo Jeong’s ‘The Coexistence of Embossed Carving and Intaglio’ which showed some great technical skills as well as creativity, the judges went for something more ‘mainstream’ and perhaps commercially viable. But I have to say I would have loved to see these two and even Ling Siu Gin’s ‘Manimal’ and Kim Yong Woo’s ‘The Existence of Space’ get some recognition for their elaborate concept and execution.

Roderic Wong's Tissue of Being was a standout despite its lack of
colour. It showed a great deal of sophisticated fabric manipulation
and clean minimal design.


Again, being a finalist in a pan-Asia competition which drew over 250 entries this year is an achievement by itself but I can see some of the designers’ disappointment. Speaking to Tatsuya, Ling Siu Gin and Kim Yong Woo after the show, they were surprisingly honest about how they felt disappointed after putting so much effort into their collections to not be one of the winners.

As for the show, some of the collections made an impression despite the lack of strong colour and silhouettes; Namely winner Roderic Wong’s ‘Tissue of Being’ was a standout especially when inspecting his self-created fabric upclose.

I won’t say more about the collections as all the interviews with the finalists (including the winners) and their sketches can be found here. But I’ll leave you to see the creations in real life as they strutted down the runway at the tent @Orchard.

The Korean winner Younji's collection


Thai winner Soravit Kaekamon's collection 'Hornbill'


Natalia Kinatoro's collection 'Tangled' was a hit with the audience
and won the People's Choice Award.

Elegant, flattering and wearable, it's easy to see why it was a hit



One of my favourite collections was by finalist Kim Soo Jeong
from Korea. I loved how the shapes translated in fabric

This jacket is just awesome!

Ling Siu Gin's Manimal collection had the most drama and unusual
shapes and I loved the masks!



Confession of Sins collection by Vincent Wong


Love the hat!!!

A very Lady Gaga-esque collection by Kim Yong Woo...


Interesting draping and shapes in Jaslin Ong's Devastate(d) pieces


Morning Mist by Eugenice Chen from Singapore


Kim Mina's collection Piece-To-Place was the only one with strong
pop of colour in it.

Last is Tatsuya Tsukahara's Braiding collection which opened the
show and was one of my favourites too!

I want that top!!!

Best dressed at the show is Ling Cai who got this dress from an
emerging designer in Hong Kong! She also happens to be starting
a business helping emerging designers so watch this space for more
on that too!

With Ling at the Media Lounge.