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Telstra joins fashion festival as major sponsor

Telstra joins fashion festival as major sponsor

Perth Fashion Festival has signed its first naming rights sponsor, with Telstra putting its name to it for the next five years.

The 2014 Telstra Perth Fashion Festival, as it is now called, will be from September 17-22.

Director Mariella Harvey-Hanrahan has promised big things for the event’s 16th year.

“This new partnership with Telstra will enable us to come up with new and unique ways to promote the WA fashion industry wider,” she said. “It will be invaluable for spreading WA’s fashion story and that of its designers to the world.”

A milestone for the festival, the sponsorship will inject a “significant six-figure sum” into the event, its biggest private-sector deal.

Harvey-Hanrahan said the sponsorship would ensure WA designers’ work would be shown to local, national and international audiences in a world-class format.

With the increasing dominance of the internet and social media within the fashion industry, Telstra area general manager Nicola Swarbrick said the partnership had “synergy” on many levels.

“Innovation, technology, creativity and fashion go hand in hand,” she said.

“In recent years we have experienced new ways to connect with one another through the dramatic growth in the use of mobile devices, an explosion in social media and a shift to e-commerce.

“These changes in digital technology create exciting new opportunities to showcase the Perth Fashion Festival.”

Premier Colin Barnett said Perth Fashion Festival had developed into an important showcase of local creative talent.

“I congratulate Telstra for signing up as a festival partner to help promote homegrown talent,” he said.

The 2014 Telstra Perth Fashion Festival program will be launched in July.

It will have more than 30 events and will be rebranded under a new logo.