Grace uses design skills to create Debs dress

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.