Limerick City TY Students Through to Finals of Design Competition

A dress designed by Transition Year students and made from contact lens manufacturing waste materials has made it through to the finals of the Bank of Ireland Junk Kouture national art and fashion design competition. The Limerick students, Gala Simic Kokot, Gemma Kiely and Leah Cusack, aged between 14 and 16, manipulated the waste materials – which were sourced from Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Ireland – included rolls of contact lens waste foil and Styrofoam tubing to create a dress and headpiece.

The finals of the competition which will be held in Dublin on April 19th. Public voting takes place between April 2nd and 6th. Prizes up for grabs include a cash prize of €2,500, iPads, a trip to the Cannes Film Festival, and LSAD and Griffith College scholarships.

Coláiste Nano Nagle, a school on Sexton Street, is the only Limerick city school chosen out of 1,560 designs submitted from around the country and is one of 80 schools through to the final.

Art teacher Sarah Nestor, who oversaw the project, said it is wonderful to get to this stage in the competition: “Since September 2017, the girls have put so much work into this project from the initial concept design stages to sourcing the right materials from Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Ireland. They used the circular Styrofoam tubing to create a ruffle effect for the skirt part of the dress and the contact lens packaging foil to bring the whole look to life. As an inner city school, it is a fantastic achievement for the girls to reach the national finals and we are so proud of them.”