Skerries students in competition success

LOCAL students have designs on a big future in fashion after being announced as regional finalists in a major competition.

Now in its sixth year, Bank of Ireland Junk Kouture is Ireland’s leading fashion and art competition for secondary schools. It challenges students to create unique, original and innovative outfits from recycled materials and junk. Open to students nationwide, entries for the 2016 competition surpassed all expectations making it the biggest competition to date. With entries up by 18 per cent, only 80 designs from each of the four provinces were lucky enough to be Silver Ticket winners.

Bank of Ireland staff Chris Costello and Pat Mullen, from the Skerries and Terenure branches, surprised student designers Sarah O’Neill, Emer Kennedy, and Rebecca Carron, from Skerries Community College, as well as Jenny Downing, Isabel Somers Kelly and Caroline Marshall from Our Lady’s School Terenure, with precious Silver Tickets which secures both teams a place in Eastern Regional Final on March 9.

The students received the Silver Ticket for their Marie Antoinette & the Garden of Versailles and Black Swan designs.

The remainder of the regional finalists will be presented with the Silver Ticket at their respective finals in March. 

The anticipation caused a social media frenzy as thousands of students logged on to the BOIStudents Facebook platform from each region to find out if they had been successful. 

Head of Youth Banking at Bank of Ireland Laura Lynch said: “The calibre of entries for this year’s competition has been fantastic and the judging panel had a very tough job choosing the top 80 from each region.

“We wish everyone the best of luck with the next stage of the competition.” 

For details on the full list of 320 regional finalists, visit www.facebook.com/BOIstudents