Canberra Institute of Technology – June 2013
In the spotlight: Reconciliation Last August, CIT released its first ever Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP). But what does this actually mean, and has it changed anything at CIT? With Reconciliation Week from 27 May – 3 June, we put some questions about reconciliation, and CIT’s role in it, to Dr Nicole Stenlake, chair of CIT’s reconciliation committee. Q: Do we really have a CIT committee dedicated to reconciliation? A: Yes! It’s actually called the RAP Implementation Committee, but we call what we actually do Reconciliation at CIT. The committee is made up of teaching and nonteaching staff, representing a range of different areas at CIT. They are all self-elected and are passionate about strengthening relationships between Indigenous and nonIndigenous students at CIT. Q: Why is reconciliation so important to CIT? A: We have a very diverse
student group at CIT, which is something we are proud of. We want our environment to be welcoming and inclusive for all people, whatever their background, and to celebrate these differences. But we also want to especially acknowledge that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples make up the first chapter of Australia’s story, yet they have also been subjected to particular, sustained injustices from colonisation to recent times. These injustices continue to resonate today, and at CIT, we believe we need to do what we can to acknowledge the past, to break the cycle of the ongoing negative repercussions, and to create equality. Q: What kind of things has the committee put in place at CIT? A: The committee mostly looks at ways to put our Reconciliation Action Plan, launched in August 2012, into practice. We’ve done
this through events for National Close the Gap Day and NAIDOC Week, Indigenous art exhibitions and demonstrations, and we’ll soon be offering information seminars too. We also ensure we acknowledge the traditional owners of the land we meet on, and include a bit of Aboriginal culture in what we do wherever we can. We believe that acknowledging the cultures of the First Australians gives us all a richer and prouder history as Australians.
Canberra Institute of Technology
cit.edu.au
Q: How can we get involved in reconciliation at CIT? A: There are many ways! Check out our Reconciliation Action Plan at cit.edu.au/ reconciliation and think about what you can do to encourage reconciliation. We would also love to see students and staff supporting reconciliation by participating in our initiatives and events – keep an eye on Facebook or cit.edu.au, or look out for information on campus for what’s coming up.
In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge that we are on Ngunnawal land.
JUNE 2013 Lesley Cioccarelli
Steve Wright
Connect now with CITSA
Positions vacant
CIT is now recruiting for paid Student Ambassadors to work at CIT events throughout the year including ACT Careers Expo and CIT Open Day.
As a CIT Student Ambassador, you will: - assist with some of the set up and pack down on the day of events - meet and greet visitors and walk them to their destination if needed cit.u is published by CIT Marketing. For more information or editorial suggestions, please email citmarketing@cit.edu.au
– talk to visitors about the benefits of studying at CIT.
ACT Careers Expo – Wednesday 31 July and Thursday 1 August 2013. You must be available from 8am – 4pm at Exhibition Park in Canberra. Paid training is provided prior to the event. CIT Open Day – Saturday 31 August 2013. You must be available from 8am – 4pm at CIT Bruce.
The CITSA website has lots of useful information for CIT students. Visit citsa.com.au. Looking for accommodation? Looking for a job? Our Classifieds section gets updated daily and lists current accommodation and job vacancies in the region. Want to be kept up-to-date? Check out the latest news or peruse the calendar.
the news, keep your class schedule with the diary and find the best offers around Australia with discounts.
CITSA has a free smart phone app, ‘citsa4u’, available for both Android and iPhone. Stay up-to-date with what is happening at CIT with
CITSA also has a Twitter account. Got something to say, drop us a line in 140 characters or less. Follow us at twitter.com/citsa4u.
See Lesley’s story cit.edu.au/leslie
CITSA has its very own Facebook page at facebook. com/citsa.
Bryan Butler
See Steve’s story cit.edu.au/steve
Thomas Smale
Check out how much fun we have in our albums, enter our competitions and win great prizes throughout the year.
Never run out of charge with CITSA’s new Chargebar If you’ve ever had your phone run out of battery in the middle of the day and didn’t have your charger on you, you’ll know just how much you rely on your phone!
Paid training is provided prior to both events.
Those days are now in the past thanks to CITSA’s new “Chargebar” at Café Yala at CIT Bruce and CIT Reid.
Ambassadors will need to make their own way to and from all events.
Charge your Android or iPhone for FREE while enjoying your coffee at Café Yala.
For more information visit cit. edu.au/ambassadors.
citsa.com.au/cafe-yala
See Bryan’s story cit.edu.au/bryan
SOVATA
Fashfest proves CIT’s got talent To the fashionable set, Canberra’s hugely-successful first-ever Fashion Week event, Fashfest, certainly proved good things come to those who wait. But to us, it proved no one has talent like CIT. The four days of sold-out fashion shows earlier this month were sleek, stylish and oh so cool and everywhere
you looked - from the fashions on the runways, to the production of the event, to the artistic backdrops, the handiwork of staff and students at CIT was on display. Of the 27 design labels chosen to showcase their work at Fashfest, 18 were from past or present students and staff of CIT.
Sarah Bowman, an interior designer and past graduate of the Advanced Diploma of Interior Design and the Diploma of Interior Decoration at CIT codesigned the catwalk and overall layout for the event. Given the tight timeframe, this was no small task. (Cont’d page 2)
See Thomas’s story cit.edu.au/thomas
Canberra Institute of Technology – June 2013
Canberra Institute of Technology – June 2013
CIT supports campaign to tackle scabies in Indigenous communities WND.LND
Fashfest proves CIT’s got talent (cont’d) “The location was only secured a week before the final designs for the catwalk were to be submitted so it was extremely busy with plenty of meetings and site visits involved,” Sarah said. “It wasn’t just the layout of the catwalk that had to be considered it was also the number of seating, the music, where the best lighting would come from, the flow of the entrance into Fashfest and then to the main catwalk. Everything had to be well thought-out.” CIT students were also involved in the sound production, in the frontof-house activities, in the planning and as event
U.L.E
volunteers, and many of the official photographers were trained at CIT. Fashfest producer, fashion designer and CIT fashion teacher Steve Wright says this is clear reflection of the creative training at CIT. “There were 150 people involved in the organisation of the event, 27 fashion shows, 100 designers, about 10 musicians and an audience of 2,500 over the four days. So much of this involved creative output from the CIT community working towards a common goal, which is the result of quality education.” The event was given all the attention to detail expected
of a high-end fashion event, ensuring that there were clear parallels between what was happening in Canberra, and what was happening in Sydney and Melbourne for Fashion Week, but with a truly unique local flavour. It may have been a long time coming, but Fashfest has proven to Australia that Canberra has a serious and lively fashion scene. But the many and various contributions of CIT to the event also went a long way to showing Canberra and Australia that CIT’s got real creative talent. Find out more about Fashfest creative director, Steve Wright at cit.edu.au/steve.
Finding our historymakers Over the course of Canberra’s 100-year, and CIT’s 85year, history, we know CIT’s apprentices, trainees and graduates have helped shape the story of Canberra. Last year, Sara Burke and Gloria Davison made history as CIT’s first double winners of the major awards at the Australian Training Awards – with Australian Apprentice of the Year and Australian Vocational Student of the Year respectively. This sparked our search for more CIT historymakers. Digging through our archives at CIT, we found Bryan Butler – a past graduate in electrical trades and broadcast and the very first ACT Apprentice of the Year back in 1966. Catching up with him, we found he has quite an incredible ‘history-making’ story to tell.
“The skills I developed in my apprenticeship all the way back then have carried me my whole career – from working at the radio station 2CA, to working at the Institute of Aboriginal studies, and then as a curator at the Australian War Memorial,” he said. As well as his training, Bryan says winning the ACT Apprentice of the Year award really kickstarted what was to become a very rewarding and surprising career. His work at 2CA especially saw him at the centre of a number of key moments not just in Canberra’s history, but in the history of the nation. “I was on the steps of Parliament House when John Gorton was announced as Prime Minister, and ended up on the front page of The Bulletin standing next to him,” Bryan said.
Newly arrived refugees who have limited English language skills but are proficient in sewing have been benefitting from the support of No Sweat Fashions in Canberra, a social enterprise that ensures refugees and migrants are equipped with knowledge of their rights to pursue fair and safe employment in the fashion and clothing production industry. Now, a new partnership with CIT is opening up further opportunities for the students of No Sweat Fashions, enabling them to receive qualifications in recognition of their skills.
“And I was the person to announce to Australia that a senior minister in the Holt government had gone missing off Cheviot Beach, which turned out to be Harold Holt himself.”
The Clothing Production for Refugees project, funded through the National VET E-Learning Strategy, uses face-to-face learning and digital products for skills recognition and training towards the Certificate III in Clothing Production.
He also recalls US President Lyndon Johnson coming right up to him to shake his hand on a visit to Australia. Bryan’s story took him full circle, when he came back to pass on all the skills he had learned and experiences he had gained as a teacher at CIT.
Jayne Miller, the project’s leader at CIT, said the training can open more doors in the industry for participants of the program.
Now retired, Bryan looks back on his story with great satisfaction. “My career took me all sorts of places – I never could have predicted, all those years back then, quite where my apprenticeship was going to take me,” he said.
National VET E-Learning Strategy facilitates no sweat training solution for refugees
Bryan Butler
See Bryan’s story and meet more of our historymakers at cit.edu.au/historymakers.
“A lot of the refugees have the skills to work in the fashion industry in Australia when they arrive, but not the qualifications. This training solution will help refugees find meaningful employment in the industry, rather than putting up with rough conditions just to
get by,” Jayne said. “The training really looks at the skills they already have – most subjects don’t require any book work, it’s just assessing what they already do.” The students cover elements of the CIT clothing production course that help them get up to speed with contemporary practices in the local fashion market, such as learning environmentally sustainable work practices. No Sweat Fashions’ CEO, Cindy Mitchell, says the qualification benefits the participants in a number of ways. “Many of the employees at No Sweat Fashions don’t have any formal education. This nationally-accredited qualification gives them selfconfidence and a source of pride,” she said. “Some migrant or refugee workers in the industry are paid at the incorrect level because it’s hard to prove your skill level without a nationallyrecognised qualification. “With a qualification, as an employer I can be sure I am paying my employees at the correct level,” she said. With 40 iPads available at No Sweat Fashions, CIT Creative Industries teachers created two iBooks to deliver two units of competency as part of the program, that can be
completed at the students’ own pace, with as much or little support from teachers as they require.
Scabies is not a disease commonly seen in the general population of developed countries, but tragically, it is epidemic in many Aboriginal communities. CIT is getting behind a campaign to close the gap on Indigenous heath inequity one disease at a time – starting with scabies. Scabies is a severe skin disease that affects seven out of 10 Aboriginal children from remote communities at least once before their first birthday. If left untreated, it can disfigure, lead to chronic disease and cause premature death.
With an emphasis on prevention and community engagement, the program, developed by not-for-profit organisation One Disease at a Time (ODAAT), has been focusing on eliminating scabies since August 2011, and relies almost entirely on donations. CIT is proud to support the initiative, with CITSA and CIT Yurauna Centre set to commence a fundraiser in the coming months as well as an awareness campaign. Stay tuned for updates, and in the meantime, you can find out more about One Disease at a Time by going to 1disease.org.
Jayne says the project, which has been extended with further funding from the ACT Independent Industry Validation of RTO Assessment Practices program, has been a little bit of a learning curve for CIT, but with support available for each student, the language, technical, and digital skill gaps could be overcome. “The chapters in each book use simplified English and are voiced-over. Text can also be highlighted and translated into languages other than English as required using the internet and iPad apps, and there are always teachers on hand to help the students with their digital skills and the industry language,” she said. The program also includes interactive recognition of prior learning (RPL) forms that assess the skills participants already have, and are completed with the help of an industry assessor. Jayne says that a sidebenefit of the project is that the teacher knowledge and experience with these new digital products mean they can also now be rolled out to mainstream programs to benefit students across CIT Creative Industries.
Ryan Spiteri
CIT graduate awarded for hospitality excellence CIT graduate Ryan Spiteri, who now works at Southern Cross Club Tuggeranong, was awarded Young Achiever of the Year at the recent Clubs ACT Awards night. “Ryan has an amazing track record of achievement and is key to the club leaving a positive impression with patrons,” said Clubs ACT Chief Executive Jeff House. “He is an outstanding ambassador who promotes the highest service standards in the club. He is a shining example of a young person embracing the career opportunities available.”
Ryan completed a management traineeship at CIT in 2012, and was also awarded a Bronze medal at WorldSkills Australia last year. The Clubs ACT awards recognise excellence across 24 categories in the clubs of the ACT, and also saw the presentation to the winners of the 2013 ACTTAB Chef’s Battle, which was held at CIT Reid in April. CIT Tourism and Hotel Management is a Clubs ACT Gold sponsor, and the preferred training provider for Clubs ACT under a new agreement.
Canberra Institute of Technology – June 2013
Canberra Institute of Technology – June 2013
CIT supports campaign to tackle scabies in Indigenous communities WND.LND
Fashfest proves CIT’s got talent (cont’d) “The location was only secured a week before the final designs for the catwalk were to be submitted so it was extremely busy with plenty of meetings and site visits involved,” Sarah said. “It wasn’t just the layout of the catwalk that had to be considered it was also the number of seating, the music, where the best lighting would come from, the flow of the entrance into Fashfest and then to the main catwalk. Everything had to be well thought-out.” CIT students were also involved in the sound production, in the frontof-house activities, in the planning and as event
U.L.E
volunteers, and many of the official photographers were trained at CIT. Fashfest producer, fashion designer and CIT fashion teacher Steve Wright says this is clear reflection of the creative training at CIT. “There were 150 people involved in the organisation of the event, 27 fashion shows, 100 designers, about 10 musicians and an audience of 2,500 over the four days. So much of this involved creative output from the CIT community working towards a common goal, which is the result of quality education.” The event was given all the attention to detail expected
of a high-end fashion event, ensuring that there were clear parallels between what was happening in Canberra, and what was happening in Sydney and Melbourne for Fashion Week, but with a truly unique local flavour. It may have been a long time coming, but Fashfest has proven to Australia that Canberra has a serious and lively fashion scene. But the many and various contributions of CIT to the event also went a long way to showing Canberra and Australia that CIT’s got real creative talent. Find out more about Fashfest creative director, Steve Wright at cit.edu.au/steve.
Finding our historymakers Over the course of Canberra’s 100-year, and CIT’s 85year, history, we know CIT’s apprentices, trainees and graduates have helped shape the story of Canberra. Last year, Sara Burke and Gloria Davison made history as CIT’s first double winners of the major awards at the Australian Training Awards – with Australian Apprentice of the Year and Australian Vocational Student of the Year respectively. This sparked our search for more CIT historymakers. Digging through our archives at CIT, we found Bryan Butler – a past graduate in electrical trades and broadcast and the very first ACT Apprentice of the Year back in 1966. Catching up with him, we found he has quite an incredible ‘history-making’ story to tell.
“The skills I developed in my apprenticeship all the way back then have carried me my whole career – from working at the radio station 2CA, to working at the Institute of Aboriginal studies, and then as a curator at the Australian War Memorial,” he said. As well as his training, Bryan says winning the ACT Apprentice of the Year award really kickstarted what was to become a very rewarding and surprising career. His work at 2CA especially saw him at the centre of a number of key moments not just in Canberra’s history, but in the history of the nation. “I was on the steps of Parliament House when John Gorton was announced as Prime Minister, and ended up on the front page of The Bulletin standing next to him,” Bryan said.
Newly arrived refugees who have limited English language skills but are proficient in sewing have been benefitting from the support of No Sweat Fashions in Canberra, a social enterprise that ensures refugees and migrants are equipped with knowledge of their rights to pursue fair and safe employment in the fashion and clothing production industry. Now, a new partnership with CIT is opening up further opportunities for the students of No Sweat Fashions, enabling them to receive qualifications in recognition of their skills.
“And I was the person to announce to Australia that a senior minister in the Holt government had gone missing off Cheviot Beach, which turned out to be Harold Holt himself.”
The Clothing Production for Refugees project, funded through the National VET E-Learning Strategy, uses face-to-face learning and digital products for skills recognition and training towards the Certificate III in Clothing Production.
He also recalls US President Lyndon Johnson coming right up to him to shake his hand on a visit to Australia. Bryan’s story took him full circle, when he came back to pass on all the skills he had learned and experiences he had gained as a teacher at CIT.
Jayne Miller, the project’s leader at CIT, said the training can open more doors in the industry for participants of the program.
Now retired, Bryan looks back on his story with great satisfaction. “My career took me all sorts of places – I never could have predicted, all those years back then, quite where my apprenticeship was going to take me,” he said.
National VET E-Learning Strategy facilitates no sweat training solution for refugees
Bryan Butler
See Bryan’s story and meet more of our historymakers at cit.edu.au/historymakers.
“A lot of the refugees have the skills to work in the fashion industry in Australia when they arrive, but not the qualifications. This training solution will help refugees find meaningful employment in the industry, rather than putting up with rough conditions just to
get by,” Jayne said. “The training really looks at the skills they already have – most subjects don’t require any book work, it’s just assessing what they already do.” The students cover elements of the CIT clothing production course that help them get up to speed with contemporary practices in the local fashion market, such as learning environmentally sustainable work practices. No Sweat Fashions’ CEO, Cindy Mitchell, says the qualification benefits the participants in a number of ways. “Many of the employees at No Sweat Fashions don’t have any formal education. This nationally-accredited qualification gives them selfconfidence and a source of pride,” she said. “Some migrant or refugee workers in the industry are paid at the incorrect level because it’s hard to prove your skill level without a nationallyrecognised qualification. “With a qualification, as an employer I can be sure I am paying my employees at the correct level,” she said. With 40 iPads available at No Sweat Fashions, CIT Creative Industries teachers created two iBooks to deliver two units of competency as part of the program, that can be
completed at the students’ own pace, with as much or little support from teachers as they require.
Scabies is not a disease commonly seen in the general population of developed countries, but tragically, it is epidemic in many Aboriginal communities. CIT is getting behind a campaign to close the gap on Indigenous heath inequity one disease at a time – starting with scabies. Scabies is a severe skin disease that affects seven out of 10 Aboriginal children from remote communities at least once before their first birthday. If left untreated, it can disfigure, lead to chronic disease and cause premature death.
With an emphasis on prevention and community engagement, the program, developed by not-for-profit organisation One Disease at a Time (ODAAT), has been focusing on eliminating scabies since August 2011, and relies almost entirely on donations. CIT is proud to support the initiative, with CITSA and CIT Yurauna Centre set to commence a fundraiser in the coming months as well as an awareness campaign. Stay tuned for updates, and in the meantime, you can find out more about One Disease at a Time by going to 1disease.org.
Jayne says the project, which has been extended with further funding from the ACT Independent Industry Validation of RTO Assessment Practices program, has been a little bit of a learning curve for CIT, but with support available for each student, the language, technical, and digital skill gaps could be overcome. “The chapters in each book use simplified English and are voiced-over. Text can also be highlighted and translated into languages other than English as required using the internet and iPad apps, and there are always teachers on hand to help the students with their digital skills and the industry language,” she said. The program also includes interactive recognition of prior learning (RPL) forms that assess the skills participants already have, and are completed with the help of an industry assessor. Jayne says that a sidebenefit of the project is that the teacher knowledge and experience with these new digital products mean they can also now be rolled out to mainstream programs to benefit students across CIT Creative Industries.
Ryan Spiteri
CIT graduate awarded for hospitality excellence CIT graduate Ryan Spiteri, who now works at Southern Cross Club Tuggeranong, was awarded Young Achiever of the Year at the recent Clubs ACT Awards night. “Ryan has an amazing track record of achievement and is key to the club leaving a positive impression with patrons,” said Clubs ACT Chief Executive Jeff House. “He is an outstanding ambassador who promotes the highest service standards in the club. He is a shining example of a young person embracing the career opportunities available.”
Ryan completed a management traineeship at CIT in 2012, and was also awarded a Bronze medal at WorldSkills Australia last year. The Clubs ACT awards recognise excellence across 24 categories in the clubs of the ACT, and also saw the presentation to the winners of the 2013 ACTTAB Chef’s Battle, which was held at CIT Reid in April. CIT Tourism and Hotel Management is a Clubs ACT Gold sponsor, and the preferred training provider for Clubs ACT under a new agreement.
Canberra Institute of Technology – June 2013
In the spotlight: Reconciliation Last August, CIT released its first ever Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP). But what does this actually mean, and has it changed anything at CIT? With Reconciliation Week from 27 May – 3 June, we put some questions about reconciliation, and CIT’s role in it, to Dr Nicole Stenlake, chair of CIT’s reconciliation committee. Q: Do we really have a CIT committee dedicated to reconciliation? A: Yes! It’s actually called the RAP Implementation Committee, but we call what we actually do Reconciliation at CIT. The committee is made up of teaching and nonteaching staff, representing a range of different areas at CIT. They are all self-elected and are passionate about strengthening relationships between Indigenous and nonIndigenous students at CIT. Q: Why is reconciliation so important to CIT? A: We have a very diverse
student group at CIT, which is something we are proud of. We want our environment to be welcoming and inclusive for all people, whatever their background, and to celebrate these differences. But we also want to especially acknowledge that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples make up the first chapter of Australia’s story, yet they have also been subjected to particular, sustained injustices from colonisation to recent times. These injustices continue to resonate today, and at CIT, we believe we need to do what we can to acknowledge the past, to break the cycle of the ongoing negative repercussions, and to create equality. Q: What kind of things has the committee put in place at CIT? A: The committee mostly looks at ways to put our Reconciliation Action Plan, launched in August 2012, into practice. We’ve done
this through events for National Close the Gap Day and NAIDOC Week, Indigenous art exhibitions and demonstrations, and we’ll soon be offering information seminars too. We also ensure we acknowledge the traditional owners of the land we meet on, and include a bit of Aboriginal culture in what we do wherever we can. We believe that acknowledging the cultures of the First Australians gives us all a richer and prouder history as Australians.
Canberra Institute of Technology
cit.edu.au
Q: How can we get involved in reconciliation at CIT? A: There are many ways! Check out our Reconciliation Action Plan at cit.edu.au/ reconciliation and think about what you can do to encourage reconciliation. We would also love to see students and staff supporting reconciliation by participating in our initiatives and events – keep an eye on Facebook or cit.edu.au, or look out for information on campus for what’s coming up.
In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge that we are on Ngunnawal land.
JUNE 2013 Lesley Cioccarelli
Steve Wright
Connect now with CITSA
Positions vacant
CIT is now recruiting for paid Student Ambassadors to work at CIT events throughout the year including ACT Careers Expo and CIT Open Day.
As a CIT Student Ambassador, you will: - assist with some of the set up and pack down on the day of events - meet and greet visitors and walk them to their destination if needed cit.u is published by CIT Marketing. For more information or editorial suggestions, please email citmarketing@cit.edu.au
– talk to visitors about the benefits of studying at CIT.
ACT Careers Expo – Wednesday 31 July and Thursday 1 August 2013. You must be available from 8am – 4pm at Exhibition Park in Canberra. Paid training is provided prior to the event. CIT Open Day – Saturday 31 August 2013. You must be available from 8am – 4pm at CIT Bruce.
The CITSA website has lots of useful information for CIT students. Visit citsa.com.au. Looking for accommodation? Looking for a job? Our Classifieds section gets updated daily and lists current accommodation and job vacancies in the region. Want to be kept up-to-date? Check out the latest news or peruse the calendar.
the news, keep your class schedule with the diary and find the best offers around Australia with discounts.
CITSA has a free smart phone app, ‘citsa4u’, available for both Android and iPhone. Stay up-to-date with what is happening at CIT with
CITSA also has a Twitter account. Got something to say, drop us a line in 140 characters or less. Follow us at twitter.com/citsa4u.
See Lesley’s story cit.edu.au/leslie
CITSA has its very own Facebook page at facebook. com/citsa.
Bryan Butler
See Steve’s story cit.edu.au/steve
Thomas Smale
Check out how much fun we have in our albums, enter our competitions and win great prizes throughout the year.
Never run out of charge with CITSA’s new Chargebar If you’ve ever had your phone run out of battery in the middle of the day and didn’t have your charger on you, you’ll know just how much you rely on your phone!
Paid training is provided prior to both events.
Those days are now in the past thanks to CITSA’s new “Chargebar” at Café Yala at CIT Bruce and CIT Reid.
Ambassadors will need to make their own way to and from all events.
Charge your Android or iPhone for FREE while enjoying your coffee at Café Yala.
For more information visit cit. edu.au/ambassadors.
citsa.com.au/cafe-yala
See Bryan’s story cit.edu.au/bryan
SOVATA
Fashfest proves CIT’s got talent To the fashionable set, Canberra’s hugely-successful first-ever Fashion Week event, Fashfest, certainly proved good things come to those who wait. But to us, it proved no one has talent like CIT. The four days of sold-out fashion shows earlier this month were sleek, stylish and oh so cool and everywhere
you looked - from the fashions on the runways, to the production of the event, to the artistic backdrops, the handiwork of staff and students at CIT was on display. Of the 27 design labels chosen to showcase their work at Fashfest, 18 were from past or present students and staff of CIT.
Sarah Bowman, an interior designer and past graduate of the Advanced Diploma of Interior Design and the Diploma of Interior Decoration at CIT codesigned the catwalk and overall layout for the event. Given the tight timeframe, this was no small task. (Cont’d page 2)
See Thomas’s story cit.edu.au/thomas