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Three models walking the runway in short silk dresses — red with a strapped and cut-away bodice, teal with crossed halter straps, and purple with cut-out sleeves

Fashion Design

Fashionata 1993 — the Innovative “Zeus” range

Three silk dresses — second-year graduating work

Designed, patterned and made by Lee Anchor

A range of three: red, teal and purple, cut close and short, each one built around a different way of opening the cloth — crossed straps at the throat, strapping across the shoulder, cut-outs running the length of the sleeve.

Fashionata 1993 was the graduating parade of the Townsville College of TAFE fashion design students — a fashion extravaganza presented by the designers of tomorrow — held at the Sheraton Breakwater Casino-Hotel on Wednesday 24 November 1993, with the Australian designer Prue Acton as guest compère. The range was shown in the Innovative — “Zeus” section, and the work covered design, pattern making, garment assembly and final presentation.

Drawing the range

The range began as a pencil rendering, worked up at 50 × 60 cm in June 1993, then developed in colour to settle the palette and the placement of every strap and opening before a pattern was drafted.

Pencil rendering on grey paper of four figures in the Innovative range, showing the crossed strapping, cut-outs and sleeve detail in line A watercolour and pencil board of five figures in blue-grey and red dresses, with a column of garment flats drawn down the right-hand edge

Left: the pencil rendering, Innovative, 50 × 60 cm, June 1993. Right: the range worked up in colour, with the garment flats drawn out beside it.

Three coloured fashion illustrations — teal, blue-purple and red dresses with cut-out sleeves — cut out and mounted above a photograph of the same three garments on the runway

The three finished illustrations set against the photograph of the range on the runway — drawing and garment side by side.

The coloured pencil illustration of the three dresses — teal, blue-purple and red — standing behind two mounted runway photographs of the same garments being worn

Drawing and garment togetherThe coloured pencil illustration of the three dresses, set behind the mounted runway photographs of the same garments as they were worn.

The garments

All three were cut in silk. The bodices are seamed to shape rather than darted, and the strapping at the neck and shoulder is made up separately and set into the seams, so the openings hold their line when the dress moves.

The three finished dresses laid flat on a table — red, teal and purple silk, showing the crossed strapping at the neckline of the teal dress

The three dresses laid outThe strapping at the neck of the teal dress worked as a separate piece.

On the runway

A model on the runway in the teal silk dress, crossed straps meeting at the throat above a teardrop opening A model on the runway in the red silk dress, strapping crossing the bodice and running down the sleeve
A model on the runway in the purple silk dress with a soft draped bodice The three dresses seen from behind as the models turn at the end of the runway

The range as it was shownAnd the backs, where most of the strapping detail sits.

Before the night

Two people at a long table stretching and painting a large backdrop panel in a workshop with windows behind

Painting the backdrop for the parade.

The assessment card

The typed card mounted with the submitted work, reading: 3 Dimensional Object — 2nd year of fashion studies. TAFE Fashionata 1993 held at Sheraton Breakwater Casino Hotel on 24th November 1993. In Innovative — Zeus section. This range of outfits involves design, pattern making, garment assembly and final presentation

The card mounted with the work when it was submitted.

The parade

Printed flyer reading Fashionata 1993 — a fashion extravaganza presented by the designers of tomorrow, Townsville College of TAFE, Wednesday 24 November 1993, Sheraton Breakwater Casino-Hotel, 7pm, tickets $30
Event flyer — Townsville College of TAFE, 1993
The pink printed programme for Fashionata 1993, naming Prue Acton as special guest compère
The printed programme — Townsville College of TAFE, 1993

For enquiries, please contact lee.anchor@optusnet.com.au.

© 2026 Lee Anchor Sculpture. All rights reserved. I acknowledge the Gubbi Gubbi (Kabi Kabi) people as the traditional custodians of this land on which we walk, work, learn and gather. I honour and pay respects to their ancestors, elders and emerging generations.