When the Northern Territory’s borders shut out the world due to COVID-19, local milliner Belinda Osborne had an idea.
She took inspiration from challenges experienced in that time, and imagined a headpiece that captured the beauty trapped inside her home territory.
“We weren’t so much in lockdown, we were locked in, we were caged in something that’s quite beautiful, Ms Osborne said.
She had just five days to make the piece and get it submitted into Australia’s top millinery competition, the 2021 Myer Millinery Award, in time.
Putting in 12-hour days in her studio, the Darwin milliner measured and cut hundreds of intricate feathers to create a latticed headpiece that could sit on a wearer’s head and confine them within.
The hard work paid off. Her piece, Forever Bound, won first prize in the coveted competition, and made Ms Osborne an overnight household name in millinery circles nationally and internationally.
“Winning it was such a proud achievement for myself, it’s an absolute dream for a milliner in Australia,” she said.
Her big win saw her order book quickly fill up, and from her Darwin studio she now makes special orders for clients in the UK, USA, Canada, Ireland, Singapore and Dubai.
