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Melbourne Fashion Festival x Vision Australia partnership events 2021

04 March 2021

Vision Australia's partnership with the Melbourne Fashion Festival will bring Audio Description to an important social, cultural and artistic arena that has, until this partnership, rarely been made accessible.

What we’re doing this year.

A new Digital Runway series will be presented as part of the 10-day Festival program returning 11-20 March. Filmed against a backdrop of some of Melbourne’s most iconic locations, each of the Digital Runways will be screened as free events and can be viewed online from anywhere in the world.

For our partnership this year, Vision Australia is audio describing three of the livestreamed runways to make them accessible for people who are blind and how low vision (and because it’s streamed, it’s available nationally!)

Audio description (referred to as 'AD') offers people who are blind or have low vision an understanding of what is happening visually across a range of contexts. It is currently used in theatre, television, film, DVD, museums, exhibitions and other live events. It consists of an additional narration woven between dialogue and other significant sounds that describes images, transitions, movements, gestures, props, settings, costumes, scenery and venue - enabling an audience member who is blind or has low vision to engage alongside their sighted peers.

The 3 runways we are describing are:

  • Runway 1 filmed against Melbourne’s city skyline with designers including búl, HoMie, and NGALI showing Saturday March 13 7.00pm AEDT
  • Runway 3 set in the beautiful and tranquil Redwood Forest featuring designs by Paolo Sebastian, Steven Khalil, and MATICEVSKI Tuesday, March 16 7.00pm AEDT
  • Runway 5 filmed at Melbourne’s first surf park URBNSURF a dynamic runway featuring the work of Esse, Jacinta James, and Matin Thursday, March 18 7.00pm AEDT

Tickets are essential to receive the exclusive link to view each runway but are free.

To sign up for free tickets to one or all one – of the audio described runways go to the links below remembering to select the ‘audio described’ ticket option.

If you have any problems, please contact the Festival directly on 03 9654 5599 or [email protected]