Elphin students Monaco bound for Junk Kouture World Final

A trip of a lifetime is taking place this week for three Elphin Community College students who are competing in the 2024 Junk Kouture World Final taking place tomorrow, Thursday, in the glamorous surroundings of Monaco.

Fifth Year students Mary McNulty, Vanessa Kielty and Martha Nugent will be among 60 finalists from around the globe showcasing their ingenious, eco-friendly couture creations at the prestigious international event venue, the Grimaldi Forum.

There are six nations competing with 10 creations on show from each country, including Ireland. In Thursday’s final, each country winner will be selected before the world winner is announced.

The Elphin team flew out on Tuesday to compete against projects from London, New York, Milan, Paris and Abu Dhabi, and will return to Ireland on Friday night. 

The inspiration behind their ‘STEMinist’ creation was to encourage more girls to get involved in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) subjects. Their design was made from a range of material including medical tubing, corrugated iron roofing, builders line, copper wire and a construction helmet.

It’s certainly been a busy 18 months for the Elphin Junk Kouture team, from working on the project, winning a national award last year, doing promotion work for Junk Kouture, being recognised at a council civic reception and even appearing on the Late Late Show.

Speaking to one of the team, Mary McNulty, before the group travelled to the World Final, she described the thoughts of the exciting adventure that lay ahead as “mind-blowing”.

“I didn’t know where Monaco was until now but I’m very happy about it! The trip out is going to be a great thing, even for a CV saying that we got to the world finals.

“I’m just excited about a lot of networking opportunities, and hopefully there will be other fashion influencers over there,” said Mary who hopes to continue her passion for fashion at third-level.

Originally from Connecticut, she came to the school only a year and a half ago.

“On my second day here, I talked to the art teacher about Junk Kouture and then Martha and Vanessa came up to me and said ‘do you want to be in our group?’, so it just worked out perfectly,” she said.

The trip to Monaco is being funded by the Junk Kouture organisers and among the travelling Elphin contingent will be their Art teacher, Susan Prendergast, who has been encouraging Junk Kouture students at the school for almost 10 years.

Over this time, the school has had notable success in the competition. In 2015, student Luke McEvoy won the national final outright, receiving a a bursary to the Limerick School of Art and Design. Luke is now working with renowned designer Paul Costello in Dublin.

Speaking to the Roscommon Herald ahead of the Monaco trip, Susan also pointed out that Vanessa Kielty’s sister Grace was part of the school team that picked up a category award at the national Junk Kouture final in 2018.

Though Vanessa, who is also modelling this year’s STEMinist creation, was only in sixth class at the time, she was still keen to help Grace and her colleagues.

“So Vanessa has been fostering this sort of ambition since she was eleven or twelve.

“Obviously, when you see her now realising her ambition, it’s like a dream come true,” explained Susan, who was keen to mention the incredible support from principal Siobhán Cullen for the initiative in the school.

Not surprisingly, this current achievement of a Junk Kouture project appearing on the world stage is one that is creating huge excitement locally.

“You only dream of these things happening as there are literally thousands of entries from this country alone.The whole school population and their families are really buzzing for the event,” said Susan, who spoke to use before the trip to Monaco.

She also explained that the world final, now in its second year, was originally due to be held in London, but because of bureaucracy issues experienced by some competing countries with the UK home office, the venue was changed to Monaco.

Principal Siobhán Cullen told the Herald that the experience of getting to a world final was a great honour for the students, their families, the school, and the whole county.

“It’s a fantastic achievement for them and I suppose it’s great to be able to showcase the great work that’s going on in the school and Susan’s work as an art teacher in the Art Department. It’s fantastic for this work to be recognised not only nationally but internationally,” she said.

“From the school’s point of view, it endorses the very high grades which are achieved consistently by the Art Department in the school at junior cycle and senior cycle level. It is a great endorsement of the work that’s carried out there.”

Ms Cullen highlighted the importance of the key messages around the STEMinist project, namely the whole idea of encouraging more girls to become involved in STEM subjects along with the growing importance of sustainability.

She was also glad to say that the three girls will have plenty of support while out in Monaco with many family members travelling out to the big event.

“They are their greatest supporters,” she said.