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Maiden collections of inaugural Star Creation winners hit runway

The 2010 winners of the Asia-wide fashion design competition, Star Creation, unveiled their maiden capsule collections on the runway at ongoing Asia Fashion Exchange in Singapore on Monday.

Audrey Lim (Singapore), Daniel Ngoo (Malaysia) and Kit Miao (China) developed their 16-piece collections under the mentorship of a fashion retailer, F J Benjamin, over the past year, where they landed an internship as part of their prize for Star Creation 2010. They also each won SGD10,000 (USD8019). Ngoo, who also bagged the Audi Young Designer Award, won an additional SGD5,000 (USD4009).

Douglas Benjamin, CEO of F J Benjamin (Singapore), who has watched the designers develop over the last year, called the three collections extremely strong and said that, in time, he was confident that Lim, Ngoo and Miao would be market-ready.

"I think they have learnt a lot and honed their skills over the last year working in the company. They have learned what it means to design, but to also create pieces that are commercially viable, to have concept but also be understood by the man in the street who needs to eventually be their customer," he added.

David Wang, who has judged the Star Creation competition for two years and is the chairman of the Textile and Fashion Federation (Singapore), said: "It is really this that makes Star Creation, as a platform, distinct from other fashion design competitions. With the right exposure following this, we could well see its winners eventually becoming export-ready for Blueprint, and, someday, on the runways of the Audi Fashion Festival."

The Star Creation Showcase also allowed members of the media and the public to catch a selection of the designs of this year’s Star Creation winners and finalists. The actual competition was held on 11 May at a closed-door Audi Gala event.

The winners of Star Creation 2011 were Tsai Ming Hung, 28, from Singapore, Chen Zhi Gang, 28, from China, and Tiang Boon Tieon, 27, from Malaysia. They each walked away with SGD10,000 (USD8019) , a one-year internship with fashion retailer F J Benjamin, and the chance to, like last year’s winners, launch their own capsule collections at the Star Creation 2012. 

Hiroyuki Watanabe, 24, from Japan, took the Audi Young Designer Award, in collaboration with Harper’s Bazaar, given to the designer whose creations best embody Audi’s design spirit of innovation, technology and progression. He won SGD10,000 (USD8019) .