MELBOURNE, April 15 (Bernama) -- A Malaysian student won the first prize in the fashion section of the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show.Hon Wee Min, a final year student at RMIT UniversityÕs School of Fashion Design here beat 13 other international exhibitors for the prestigious award, adding to the first prize he won in the Sydney Road Traders Fashion Competition last year.Hon, 27, was educated at Confucian Private Secondary School, Kuala Lumpur, before coming here two years ago to study fashion design. His parents Hon Pong Khow and Madam Hua Wee Gan, live in Taman Midah, Cheras,In recent months Hon has won wide recognition for his outstanding work and he features prominently at the Sportsgirl Boutique Exhibition Centre in Melbourne.He has worked at the Issey Miyake Boutique in the Concord Hotel, the Danelle Boutique in KL and at Theme Boutique in Singapore, before coming here.Hon said his prize-winning design at the flower show, held at the Royal Melbourne Exhibition Building, was a gown that showed the balance and proportion based on the ``ying and yang philosophyÕÕ and developed ``an outerwear within the meaning of ecology and body structureÕÕ.``To combine these two living elements, hoses with water inserted were used to represent blood circulation with the body structure. Flowers were used to show the organic nature, emphasising the sense of living,ÕÕ he said.``The gown was inspired by the body structure and how it associates with nature.ÕÕHon said he was interested in the relationship between horticulture and body structure and it was his belief that there was a strong relationship between these two elements...human and plants, both living things and they needed each other for surviving on the planet.-- fotoBernama

photographed by: fotoBERNAMA