Anne Leon, designer and NPA Art workshop trainer displays silk scarves made with Shibori dye technique. Photo: Northern Peninsula Area Art Centre.
Northern Peninsula Area locals have the chance to create a silk fashion collection alongside an established designer for the upcoming 2024 cultural arts festival season.
Fashion designer Anne Leon is now leading a free workshop at the Northern Peninsula Area Art Centre in New Mapoon held from November 20 to December 2.
The final collection is said to include a range of kimonos, kaftans and comfortable island-style clothing.
Ms Leon said that students will learn basic patterns and sewing skills to work with the silk fabrics, as well Shibori techniques to dye fabrics using locally-sourced plant materials to create intricate patterns and backgrounds.
Shibori is a fusion of plant-dye and screen-print techniques resulting in multi-layered wearable art fabrics.
“Using local nature surrounds as our inspiration, we will draw and refine images which will become the basis for the prints: transferring images onto screens using photo-emulsion and printing them onto the pre-dyed cloth,” she said.
She hopes to have the collection showcased outside of the NPA next year.
“The rich layering of dye, print and textures enables a depth of artistry and a collection of unique garments, which we hope to have paraded in fashion parades at Cairns Indigenous Art Fair and Darwin Art Fair in 2024,” she said.
She has travelled from her studio in northern NSW, where she creates custom hand-printed and naturally dyed textiles and maintains her arts practice, Anne Leon Design.
The NPA Art Centre aims to promote, preserve, empower, harness and capture the artistic creative talents of local artists and their artworks that showcase the rich cultural diversoty of the NPA region.
Silk kaftan produced at NPA Art workshop in New Mapoon. Photo: Northern Peninsula Area Art Centre.
