Political fashion statements

ROSS GIBLIN/The Dominion Post

STYLE WITH SUBSTANCE: Jessica Duxfield, 18, models the Guantanamo Bay-inspired design of Massey University student Hannah Mitchell.

ROSS GIBLIN/The Dominion Post

STYLE WITH SUBSTANCE: Jessica Duxfield, 18, models the Guantanamo Bay-inspired design of Massey University student Hannah Mitchell.

ROSS GIBLIN/The Dominion Post

STYLE WITH SUBSTANCE: Jessica Duxfield, 18, models the Guantanamo Bay-inspired design of Massey University student Hannah Mitchell.

ROSS GIBLIN/The Dominion Post

STYLE WITH SUBSTANCE: Jessica Duxfield, 18, models the Guantanamo Bay-inspired design of Massey University student Hannah Mitchell.

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ROSS GIBLIN/The Dominion Post

STYLE WITH SUBSTANCE: Jessica Duxfield, 18, models the Guantanamo Bay-inspired design of Massey University student Hannah Mitchell.

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While Barack Obama plans to close Guantanamo Bay, a Massey University fashion design student's opposition to the detention centre has taken a more subtle approach.

Hannah Mitchell's end-of-year collection makes a political statement on the prison, where hundreds of people have been held without trial by the United States for up to six years.

Ms Mitchell's garments, screenprinted with distorted text and the lyrics of Bob Dylan's song Masters of War, will take centre stage at the university's graduate fashion show tonight and Saturday.

"It's a political continuum regarding the way media, in particular America's Fox News, distorts the truth behind cultural conflicts, civil wars and different situations around the world including Guantanamo Bay," Ms Mitchell said.

She has deliberately produced her garments from contrasting fabrics - free-flowing silk and restrictive leather - to make her point.

"Rather than producing a beautiful commercial collection, I am using fashion as a communication tool to say what I want to say."

The creative collections on show also include Harriet Sharpe's sculpted designs inspired by birds in flight. She has combined natural fibres with plastic and piano wire to create a dramatic silhouette by draping the fabric and hand tailoring. "I'm really interested in couture because I see it as a form of sustainability. Creating one-off pieces to be cherished rather than mass-produced pieces that just get discarded," Ms Sharpe, 22, said.

Liz Ting, 21, made a print mix of religious icons merged on to fabric. It created a stained-glass-window effect inspired by the relationship between branding and religion, Versace - "the king of consumerism" - and Andy Warhol pop art.