Spotlight Design & Technology Textiles Award.
2025 was a new start to an exciting year of Year 9 & 10 Design & Technology: Textiles in Room L215.
After starting the year with very little resources with many changes in the room, NGV excursions, guests and learning the Double Diamond Design process, students produced a range of fabulous designer creations over the year. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the students who developed new knowledge and practical skills and then persevered to create crochet, knitting, sewing and embroidery designs. Fifty of our students had their projects included in Melbourne Design Week which is a great honour to be exhibiting with emerging designers across Melbourne. Students continued their divergent & convergent thinking skills during class times and lunch time sessions in The Atelier (L215).
Throughout the year, we worked closely with the a range of creative stakeholders across the wider community who supported and guided the development of our new courses, including local business such as Spotlight, Rathdown Remnants, Darn Cheap Fabrics, and Wool Bar; Neha and Yesha from AFTER (Melbourne Design Week); Aya Hakiai, pattern maker and designer at Ess Laboratory; Tui Cordingley, a retired designer; and the National Gallery of Victoria.
All textiles stakeholders love to see student work and these wonderful creative people offered so much to our students. Sincere thanks to each one of you for your time and creativity to develop and support the student learning growth in textiles’ classes. After seeing the wonderful work of our young designers, Brother Sewing Machines, Spotlight and Tui worked with me to develop a new annual award for critical skills and creativity: Brother & Tui: Spotlight Design & Technology: Textiles Award. Together we developed a criteria for three prizes. Thank you to all the students who submitted their work for the inaugural award. The stakeholders were so impressed with the designs and after a rigorous process, the following students secured the 2025 award and prizes.
1st Prize: Brother Sewing Machine (FS60X) awarded to Tandi B (10I)
2nd Prize: Spotlight Gift Voucher awarded to Swasti V (10F)
3rd Prize: Tui Spotlight Gift Voucher awarded to Edmunda L (9K)
Congratulations to our three amazing designers. Your attention to creativity and design are impressive and inspirational. Please see the photos of their work and our student exhibitions.
If you are studying Design & Technology: Textiles in Year 9 or Year 10 in 2026, remember to apply for the second Brother & Tui: Spotlight Design & Technology: Textiles Award next year.
In this year’s Kickstart class, Year 10 students are designing gowns for next year’s Met Gala. The 2026 theme is “New York — What’s the best dressed painting of all time?” Students are using their favourite artwork to design amazing Met Gala costumes. Check out the designs when they are on display the first week of academic classes in 2026.
Mac.Rob would like to acknowledge and thank the generosity of Brother Sewing Machines, Spotlight South Melbourne, and Tui Cordingley. Watch this space as we continue to post the amazing work of our Mac.Rob designers throughout 2026.
Deborah Cordingley | Design & Technology: Textile