Top of the Junk Heap... Eye catching designs using sustainable and resuable materials from Enfield students
Budding fashionistas from Enfield Community College have created six eye-catching designs all using sustainable and reusable materials as part of this year's Junk Kouture competition.
Transition year art students in Enfield CC have been "junk" materials to create couture as part of the fashion competition which challenges second level students to be creative in finding new ways to work with materials. Each year, young people from across Ireland, UK, USA, France, Italy and UAE get involved in this competition.
In Meath, Enfield Community College is among the local schools taking part in the fashion competition. Transition year art students are actively designing and creating their vision under the guidance of the art teachers Jennifer Daly and Emily Briody.
'I do' is the entry by Aoibhinn Muldoon, Olivia Szewczyk and Asia Szlachta who based their entry on 1980's style weddings and took inspiration from Madonna, Jean Paul Gaultier and Versace. Describing their entry, they said: "We wanted to reject the simplicity of the modern bridal style and go for something big and bold. We used packing foam on our design to show that anything can be recycled transformed into a wearable design. We recycled pearl Christmas decorations as we wanted the corset to look elegant and bridal in style. We also used cotton pads to make flowers on our skirt. We made a big bold and bouncy over skirt of tulle and pearls."
Eabha Corcoran, Armanca Muntean, Sophie Meehan and Adrianna Boboc came together to create "Disco diva". They said: "For our design, we looked at every aspect of the disco scene and the eye catching, glamorous outfits made of sequin and metallic designed to shine under the club lights. We were all drawn to the reflective disco ball. We experimented with CDs to help represent the mirror detail of the disco ball.
We liked the shiny and reflective aspects and the mirror pattern that formed. The iconic mirror mask worn by Lady Gaga immediately came to mind."
'Fleurish and Heal' was created by Lena Roe, Sophie Moore, Lucy Quinn. "Our design was inspired by the waste of unused bandages in hospitals because they go out of date. We liked working with the bandage material as we found it very versatile and easy to manipulate into forms for our design. While we were brainstorming, we looked at the tradition of giving flowers to patients. This custom of giving flowers expresses love, passion and sympathy. We gained inspiration from the iconic bandage dress by a French designer Herve Ledger and the “Caped Gown” design by Alexander McQueen."
'Mirror Ball' is the name of the design created by Evie Berry, Ellie O’Neill, Isobel O’Neill, Megan Cronin and Ella Morgan who were inspired by Taylor Swift and the iconic reflective and shiny mirrored dress that she wore to the American Music Awards in 2018. "We experimented with metal pie cases, CD’s and holographic plastics to reproduce the metallic and mirror reflective surfaces. We were also influenced by the costumes designed by Sandy Powell in the magical live action 'Cinderella' film. We created a corset, skirt, train, wings and headpiece to complete our design."
'Star Gazer' was created by Róisín Kiernan, Amelie Hughes, Adriana Boboc, and Kate Fitzsimons who were inspired by the night sky and stars. The design is asymmetrical sort of like a Picasso cubist painting but also because stars are not all the same so neither is each side of our design! The top of our design is asymmetrical made with cardboard which is wrapped in rich velvet. We used scrunched up recycled chiffon fabric and added pearls on top of it. The skirt is made out of an old poncho with decorative jewellery cross the waste band, the skirt has a train with velvet ruffles on the edge it also has a velvet waistband, the bangles are made out old hair bands and jewellery."
"Get Ready and Bustle Up” was designed by Amelia Byrnes and Killian Phelan who were inspired by designers Rei Kawakubo and Christian Dior. They recreated the bustle look with a Styrofoam block at the back to hold up that circular incline and foam to make a strap around the waist.
"We used old curtains as the main fabric in the dress, by dividing them into their respective colours of white and pink, along with a patterned design, we used the pink fabric primarily at the back and had it drape around from the front and concluding at the back, while the white was a base for the dress. We made a corset out of cardboard and masking tape, it was painted, fabric was sewn over top of it, there were ruffles of the patterned fabric to complete the Victorian detail.