Grace uses design skills to create Debs dress

27/08/2013 (NO REPRO FEE) Grace O�"Mahony, winner of last year�"s Kilkenny Fashion Week Student Scholarship, is pictured in the Debs dress she made herself during her summer scholarship at the Grafton Academy of Dress Designing in Dublin. Grace wore the dress, featuring intricate draping detail, to her debs ball on Monday night and was assisted in its creation by the Academy�"s senior head tutor Colin Atkinson. The Loreto Secondary school student, who is a part-time model with 1st Option, plans on a career as a fashion designer and will study fashion design in college this Autumn. Details of this year�"s Kilkenny Fashion Week Student Scholarship are available on www.kilkennyfashionweek.com. Photo: Pat Moore.
Two Kilkenny students are fresh from completing their summer scholarship at the prestigious Grafton Academy of Dress Designing.

Two Kilkenny students are fresh from completing their summer scholarship at the prestigious Grafton Academy of Dress Designing.

Grace O’Mahony, a Loreto student who sat her Leaving Certificate this summer, was last year’s winner of the Kilkenny Fashion Week Student Scholarship for her creation of a 1930s gown using an old dress and a black bed sheet.

She received a four-week scholarship to the Grafton Academy which she completed last week.

During her time at the Academy Grace designed and made her Debs dress - a white Grecian-style gown – during her scholarship.

Dylan Kerr, a student from Kilkenny College, was awarded a three-week scholarship as runner-up thanks to his sophisticated design of a black dress using bicycle tubing for shoulder pads, metal effect mosaic fabrics on and a spike pendant from an old bicycle chain.

During his scholarship, Dylan designed a pattern and manufactured a kilt for himself, a dress for his sister, a trousers, top and jacket for his grandmother. He also designed a pattern for a dress for his mother. “I had an incredible experience at the Grafton Academy this summer. I got the chance to experience what it’s really like working in the fashion industry, he said.