“Fashion starts with the fabric", “wool is the best fibre”, and “we must get its message out to the world,” preened style-setter Ms Clements, to a roaring round of applause from the trendy fashion elitists piled into Docklands Atlantic Central Pier on Tuesday night, eagerly awaiting the presentation of this year’s LMFF designer award.

Designer appetite for wool hasn’t waned since Woolmark returned its support to what Clements deems as the most coveted and prestigious designer award in the country.

In Woolmark’s third successive year supporting the award, the appetite for wool among the nations’ top young designers continues to grow, with sensual wool blends draped into flowing knee, thigh and ankle length dresses, tailored wool jackets en masse, and weightless knits catching the eyes of the hungry fashion crowd.

And the impetus to use wool was piled on by AWI when it announced a new global wool fashion award with a $10,000 prize plus a hosted trip to the Pitti Filati fashion fair in Florence and the Premiere Vision trade event in Paris to rub shoulders with a who's who of the fashion world.

When Sydney designer Dion Lee’s name was announced out of the seven candidates, more wool gushing followed.

“That news (the global Woolmark award) is amazing,” the 24-year-old stammered before composing himself.

“Wool is a pleasure to work with. I love the light bouncy handle to suiting wool and it sews and presses so perfectly. There is no better fibre to tailor with.”

Under the new AWI concept global designer award – the Woolmark Emerging Designer Award - Dion Lee will get the chance to take his designs to compete against top talent in New York, Paris, Milan, Shanghai and Tokyo.

Whispers from the AWI team out in force at the event were a reality television show following the six young designers from each country is on the drawing board.