A glamour design contest.

[Fawkes]

There has been gear design contests, but its been awhile. A simple google search can tell you when and which pieces of gear won. iirc they were all stuck behind pvp

Only one set was pvp. They had contests for each role, and then SE designed the rest of the sets. The tank gear was tome gear, the healer and caster were dungeon gear, melee was pvp, and ranged was crafted.