Domenic Roylance has won the $25,000 Carla Zampatti Foundation Design Award.
Domenic Roylance accepted the 2020 Carla Zampatti Foundation Award remotely from London. Pictured with Carla Zampatti, Professor Elizabeth Mossop and Associate Professor Timo Rissanen. Photo: Myles Kalus.
Fashion icon Carla Zampatti – who this year celebrated the accomplishment of 55 years in the fashion business – has named University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Fashion and Textiles graduate, Domenic Roylance the winner of the 2020 Carla Zampatti Foundation Design Award.
“I am proud to continue to support fashion graduates from UTS, especially during the challenging times that we have been facing in 2020,” said Zampatti.
“We must always look to the future and find ways to support and encourage the next generation of Australian designers to succeed in the global fashion industry.”
The award is intended to support further international study for an outstanding graduate from Sydney’s leading fashion degree, with the long-term goal of enriching the Australian fashion industry.
Winner Domenic Roylance's 2019 graduate collection combined volume and texture with detailed quilting and embroidery.
Roylance will use the $25,000 award money to support further study in the Master of Arts in Fashion program at the prestigious Central Saint Martins, London.
He accepted the award via Zoom in London, having recently been granted an exemption to travel to commence his studies, saying “I want to say thank you so much to Carla Zampatti for the generous support she has given to students, particularly with everything that is happening in the world. This award has allowed us to dream big and hope for the future.”
Roylance, whose graduate collection was influenced by the yiayias (grandmothers) of Cyprus, says it’s his intention to evoke joy: expressed through voluminous designs incorporating quilting and embroidery.
Domenic Roylance's graduate fashion collection incorporates volume and textures to "evoke joy".
Since graduating, Roylance has launched his own clothing brand, and was selected to show at the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival’s National Graduate Showcase in March. He was also awarded an Australian Fashion Foundation Scholarship in December last year.
The Carla Zampatti Foundation judges praised Roylance, commenting “In the frenetic imagery of our communication landscape, Domenic’s designs cut through. Most significantly, Domenic shows us how the medium of fashion can be transporting, as we live in the spaces of our own and others’ histories.”
This award has allowed us to dream big and hope for the future.
Domenic Roylance
2020 Carla Zampatti Foundation Design Award winner
Associate Professor Timo Rissanen, director of the UTS Fashion and Textiles Program said, “the opportunity and financial support to study overseas is an invaluable gift for an emerging fashion designer, enabling them to expand their professional connections and contribute to building a more networked fashion system.”
Fashion graduates from UTS consistently excel in awards for emerging designers, and regularly go on to complete postgraduate study at other world-leading international design schools.
“The Fashion and Textile program at UTS is deeply grateful for this generous award, which builds upon our international standing, and that of Australian fashion,” said Rissanen.
The judges commended all three finalists, Domenic Roylance, Andrew Boustani and Mei Zhang, saying, “Each designer possesses exceptional creative talent and the discipline essential to pursue postgraduate study at leading international institutions, and ultimately to develop successful fashion design careers.”
Finalists Andrew Boustani and Mei Zhang will also be undertaking further study overseas, with Zhang joining Roylance at Central Saint Martins in London, and Boustani accepted for the Fashion Design and Society graduate program at Parsons School of Design in New York.