Judging the Chambord Shine Awards

So last night, I was a judge for the Chambord Shine Awards heat in Melbourne held at The Long Room. My fellow judges were Emily Power from the Herald Sun, designer Joe Farage from Farage Style and Kate Mansour from Chambord. We were given a set of criteria to fit the Chambord brief upon which to judge and the 2 judge finalists were; Anna Campbell and Jolet with the Poeple's choice award going to limedrop.

Held in 3 states (Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney) the 3 finalists from each state will go onto compete for the ultimate prize where their outfit will be worn by a fashion forward celebrity during Spring Racing Carnival and show their collection at a fashion festival in 2011.

The fellow nominee's for the heat still have the chance to win the Wild Card entry so we wish above., Stacey Christie, MLY Black label, Michelle Czech and Alexi Freeman the best of luck.

Panel Beater

So I've taken to becoming a panel beater of late.. and no, not the tradey kind with a flannie and boots (although both are in fashion!). I've become a panel advisor - don't quite know how this happened, but here I am realising I'm on a variety of panels.

1. RMIT asked me to sit on an advisory board panel for a new course they are looking at launching.

2. AEC asked me to sit on their advisory board for the trade exhibition Fashion Exposed of which I have been a guest speaker and judge for the Debut award. (only problem has been both panel meetings conflicted with other commitments, so I haven't been able to attend any meetings as yet - do I still qualify?)

3. City of Melbourne asked me to sit on their breakfast series seminar panel for Melbourne Spring Fashion Week to discuss the topics that should be addressed at this years seminars.

4. I sat on the panel assessments for third year students at Whitehouse Institute of Design in Melbourne where I lecture to assess the commercial and marketing reality of the collections presented.

5. I just got approached today to sit on another education institute's panel to review students work as well.

What's happening? Are all those years of me thinking my opinion mattered when it clearly didn't coming back in a good karmic way? Who knows, but I enjoy it and should anyone else want me on a panel - just holler... apparently I can't say no!