The winning Year 12 Wool4School entry from Chanelle Davenport at the Innisfail State College in Queensland.

SINGERS Kylie Minogue, Ed Sheeran, Lady Gaga, Sia and Taylor Swift are among the many superstars Australian school students have been designing for as part of the latest Wool4School competition.

In its seventh year, Australian Wool Innovation’s Wool4School competition invited students to think about the versatility of various wool fabrics as part of a creative design of their own.

In the 2017 competition, Australian students were invited to design an onstage outfit for their favourite musician with access to an extensive resource library and free samples of both knitted and woven fabric in the classroom.

With more than 13,000 registrations and almost 1000 final entries, Wool4School in 2017 was clearly a hit, AWI said. Year level and teacher winners were spread widely across Australia and will share in more than $10,000 in prizes and rewards.

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The Year 10 Wool4School winner, Alice Wang from St George’s High School in New South Wales will see her design for Australian singer-song writer Sia become reality with when leading Australian designer Jonathan Ward makes her garment.

“Alice Wang’s winning entry designed for SIA was outstanding in who it was designed for and by incorporating and understanding how to utilise the properties of wool with the artist’s needs was excellent,” Mr Ward said.

Year 12 winner Chanelle Davenport from Innisfail State College in Queensland has won a scholarship to study at the prestigious Whitehouse Institute of Design. Institute founder Leanne Whitehouse said it was an honour for the Institute to partner with The Woolmark Company and contribute to the advancement of design in Australia through Wool4School.

“A very special and well-deserved congratulations to Chanelle Davenport on her winning design.

“Chanelle’s knowledge of Merino wool and her use of Merino innovations in her on-stage design for Kylie Minogue not only demonstrates a strong focus on trend, but she also shows a powerful sense of fashion, combining a measured balance of proportion, texture and colour,” Ms Whitehouse said.

“I look forward to welcoming Chanelle in 2018 and watching her design talent evolve and grow when she takes up her award of a scholarship to Whitehouse Institute of Design studying the Bachelor of Design.

“I would also like to extend congratulations to the runner-up Isabella Miller, and highly commend all 2017 Wool4School applicants for the high standard of their very creative entries.”

Winner of the Teacher Prize in 2017, Amy Kleindienst from Willoughby Girls High School in NSW said Wool4School was easy and fun to implement into the classroom and engaged the students given both the design brief and the many resources available.

Australian Wool Innovation Group Manager of Education and Extension Julie Davies said  Wool4School was an important part of an expanded education program at AWI and The Woolmark Company.

“We have an education offering to develop not only the next woolgrowers, textile experts and fashion designers but the next generation of consumers as well.

“It was very pleasing to see the 2017 winners coming from right across Australia, with both government and independent schools well represented, highlighting the wide attraction of the competition,” she said.

AWI said Wool4School continued to make a strong impression in Hong Kong and England where an increasing number of students are undertaking a modified version of the competition.

Click here to see a complete list of the Australian 2017 Wool4School student and teacher winners.

Source: AWI.