In what is believed to be a world-first, the 21-year-old knitwear designer has created a machine-knitted puffer jacket using expandable yarn, so the garment's warm filling is manufactured at the same time as its outer layers.
Made on a $330,000 Japanese industrial knitting machine called the Shima Seiki at the The University of Technology Sydney, it makes down- or polyester-filled utilitarian puffers look very last-season.
"When it comes off the machine, it's already stuffed, it's already filled. It's already knitted all together," said Bucciarelli.
The piece belongs to a collection of knitwear she will send down the runway as part of an emerging designers showcase during Australian Fashion Week in May.
The UTS honours graduate picked up a pair of knitting needles at the age of three, guided by her Italian Nonna, and has been knitting and crocheting since.
A Fashion Week runway showcase feels like an endorsement that she has been on the right path, she said.
"It feels incredibly affirming ... To be recognised at this stage feels so surreal and deeply rewarding."
Shima Seiki machines are widely used internationally and, importantly, there are none of the offcuts that come with sewn garments - a major waste problem for the fashion industry.
When UTS acquired its Shima Seiki in 2023, it was the only one of its kind in the southern hemisphere.
This lack of scale means Australia has been slow to break new ground in knitwear fashion, according to Bucciarelli.
"It's quite expensive to innovate because we're so separate from the rest of the world ... I find Australian fashion very functional; people are too scared to experiment," she said.
Since the 1980s, trade liberalisation measures have shifted fashion manufacturing offshore.
Some 97 per cent of the products made by Australia's $28 billion fashion industry are now manufactured overseas, according to the Australian Fashion Council.
​"We don't want young, innovative designers to have to go offshore but the challenge of Australia with manufacturing has been that we moved away from it a long time ago," said Fashion Week chief executive Kellie Hush.
The Council took over Fashion Week following the departure of IMG in 2024 and is talking to state and federal governments about expanding Australia's local manufacturing capabilities.
In the meantime, Bucchiarelli's puffer jacket is a long, long way from hitting the market - it took about 20 hours of machine knitting and would have cost an estimated $6000 to produce.
Having interned with labels such as Romance Was Born, SABA and Carla Zampatti, the young designer hopes to find work in the industry but her ultimate ambition is to start her own knitwear label.
Another designer with big ambitions is Melbourne's Gloria Chol, who aims to establish an Australian-made, South-Sudanese owned luxury brand.
The 33-year-old is also part of the Fashion Week showcase, with her label By Gloria Chol.
"I think it's a great opportunity to represent where I come from and share that with the rest of Australia," she said.
Chol, who has 22 siblings, arrived in Australia in 1999 and says her upbringing was surrounded by style, pattern and colour.
Her designs mix tailoring and streetwear, with Fashion Week pieces featuring original prints on organza fabrics.
Because Chol is participating in a group show with half a dozen other designers, she can't choose who wears her garments on the runway.
She hopes at least half of the models will be African, while Kellie Hush says she is confident Fashion Week's runways will be diverse.
Chol is currently selling her pieces via Instagram - and racing to establish a website in time for the interest she hopes to generate from Fashion Week.
"I want to turn this into something really big because we don't have a South Sudanese owned luxury brand, so I want that space," she said.
Australian Fashion Week runs May 11-15.
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