Heartstrings

Grace Burke
Freya Heffernan
Evlyn Norris

Elphin
Community College

roscommon county council

This group sourced the items used to create their outfit from a donation drive at their school, their own wardrobes, local charity shops and leftover ribbon from one of their mother’s businesses. The inspiration for their ‘street style’ outfit came from the items they gathered, the denim looks of Vogue’s 2016 runway show, Vivianne Westwood’s grunge style, the Comme de Garcon logo and the wish to create a pair of jeans that could also be worn as a skirt.

  • The top was created by cropping the hoodie, removing the sleeves, cutting out the heart shape at the shoulder, adding ribbons to the hoodie strings as well as to the opening of the hoodie and reshaping it into a peplum style using a simple pinning and stitching technique. 

  • The team created the convertible skirt by stitch ripping the centre front and back seams of a long denim skirt and adding poppers to enable it to be worn as trousers as well as a skirt. The cut-out-heart motif was continued along each side of the skirt. Each of these hearts is patched with a different fabric or technique, with the Vivienne Westwood inspiration coming through in the safety pins holding a smaller denim heart in place, this striking design feature also is created in the back pocket of the skirt and in the shoulder of the hoodie. The team also braided some of the donated ribbons together to make a belt for the skirt and created a bag using the sleeves and leftover fabric from the hoodie which they embellished with a denim cut out heart. The outfit is finished off with a pair black boots bedazzled with rhinestones.

  • The group researched the impacts of acrylic production