It has been almost three years since once-in-a-century floods devastated a small town in Western Australia’s far north, and while infrastructure has been rebuilt, emotional scars remain.<\/p>\n
Fitzroy Crossing, more than 2,000 kilometres north of Perth, has also been dubbed the “outback fashion capital” of Australia; a home to a swathe of international models, designers and artists.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This year, that talent was used to promote healing from the floods through fashion.<\/p>\n
Building confidence<\/p>\n
The After the Flood Fashion Project initiated by Marra Worra Worra Aboriginal Corporation (MWW) transformed the old Fitzroy Crossing bridge into a fashion runway, with residents modelling local designs illuminated by the sunset.<\/p>\n
Resident and MWW staff member Geneva Watson said participating in her first runway event was both daunting and rewarding.<\/p>\n
“It was a bit nerve-racking when we were doing the rehearsal but when the show started \u2026 I didn’t have a worry, wasn’t stressed,” she said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fitzroy Crossing residents model local designers’ work on the runway. (Supplied: Marrra Worra Worra, Isabelle Grand’Eury)<\/p>\n
The project, jointly funded by the Australian and West Australian governments under the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements, consisted of workshops and the final runway.<\/p>\n
Prominent designers Camilla Sawford and Brodie George and international model Billie-Jean Hamlet returned to their home town to mentor participants.<\/p>\n
Ms Watson said connecting with local mentors helped bolster confidence.<\/p>\n
“It was a bit nervous at first because I really didn’t know where to start and we had our beautiful mentors from here \u2026 I felt inspired by them,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Once we got the hang of it, girls walked out like superstars.”<\/p>\n
Ms Watson said it was a proud moment to be modelling Indigenous designs from her home town.<\/p>\n
“I’m looking forward to having more of that opportunity in the future,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We had the beautiful sunset; it was just so beautiful that day.”<\/p>\n
Mentoring residents<\/p>\n
Nowadays, Fitzroy Crossing resident and MWW worker Kahlia Rogers is used to walking on runways across Australia and overseas, but\u00a0still vividly remembers the nerves of her first time.<\/p>\n
“It was\u00a0really good to help the girls out, knowing I’ve had that experience being on\u00a0a\u00a0runway, doing fashion shows,” she said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Kahlia Rogers says it was great to give back to the community.\u00a0 (ABC Kimberley: Marra Worra Worra, Isabelle Grand’Eury)<\/p>\n
“This is just one of the ways you could build yourself up.”<\/p>\n
Ms Rogers said the workshops exposed participants to a range of pathways in the fashion industry and helped build up self-esteem and confidence.<\/p>\n
“We were all proud of the young girls that gave it a go and pushed themselves out of their comfort zone,” she said.<\/p>\n
“[It built] their confidence to be able to be more confident within themselves [in their] day-to-day life.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has been almost three years since once-in-a-century floods devastated a small town in Western Australia’s far north,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[12365,200216,64,63,20638,4398,67316,200218,200217,35216,41197,10570,44,45],"class_list":["post-369663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-aboriginal","tag-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fashion","tag-first-nations","tag-fitzroy-crossing","tag-fitzroy-crossing-bridge","tag-fitzroy-flood","tag-flood","tag-indigenous-fashion","tag-natural-disasters","tag-news","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}