Harry Styles, Ladies' Day and the meat industry inspire designs that nab coveted Wildcard places
Final 40 designs now revealed for Junk Kouture Grand Final 2021
Celebrations are in order for five lucky Junk Kouture contestants today as the RT Wildcard entries for this year's final are announced. On Sunday, 35 entries were selected from around the country to appear in this year's Grand Final. For those who did not qualify, there was still hope that they would be thrown a lifeline with the five additional Wildcard places up for grabs. Junk Kouture are delighted to reveal the remaining five final spaces have now been awarded to one team from each of the five regions, as chosen by the Junk Kouture judges and RT .
It was a tough call for the judging panel, made up of Louis Walsh, Michelle Visage, new judge Roz Purcell and fashion designer Stephen McLaughlin, as despite the pandemic, students pulled out all the stops with their designs and there were so many worthy designs entered this year - anyone who tuned in to the Regional Finals last week could attest to that! In the end, it was the incredible attention to detail in five designs in particular that sealed the deal for the judges.
Without further ado, the five Wildcard designs that will now go on to compete at the final later this year are:
From the South-East Region, Better Red than Dead, by Jennifer Murphy and Maisie Adams from Gorey Community School, Co. Wexford. Galloping into the grand final is this design created using hundreds of rosettes which have been gathered from equestrian competitions. This is a look that would certainly turn heads on Ladies' Day with a headpiece made using the wire framework from a discarded lampshade.
From the North Region, Floraison, by Niamh Diver Hall, Carndonagh Community School, Co. Donegal. This regal look is a representation of the arts community during Covid-19 and how artists and writers have had to overcome many obstacles. Made from old music sheets, butterflies in the design symbolise the emergence from cocooning, while paper flowers show growth during these difficult times.
South Region: Toxicity by Aaron Ganly and Gemma Liddy from Kinsale Community School, Co. Cork. Inspired by Harry Styles, the designers wanted their creation to confront toxic masculinity. They linked the themes of reckless fashion waste disposal and society rejecting people who break gender norms. The creation is all about taking a stand against these issues as well as promoting the upcycling of clothes, with the outfit made from old bed sheets and pillowcases adorned with old jewellery.
West Region: Faux Show by Lucy O'Brien and Ellie Flanagan from Sacred Heart Catholic School, Co. Offaly. Faux Show is all about drawing attention to the carbon footprint made by the meat industry. As leather is a by-product of this, the designers wanted to highlight that leather production has high environmental costs. The outfit intends to give a new lease of life to second-hand faux leather, collected from friends and family members and charity shops, instead of it being disposed of and to show that you can reduce, reuse and recycle your faux leather for a fraction of the cost.
East Region: Draconic Defender, by Aoibhe Hegarty and Giulia Simonato from Loreto Secondary School Balbriggan, Co. Dublin. This design was inspired by the concept of a Medieval warrior that defended fantastical creatures rather than persecuting them. Elements of the by-gone era of knights wearing armour, fiery dragons and all mythical creatures are all featured in the design, with plastic waste products manipulated by heat to culminate in this striking outfit.
Judge Louis Walsh said: We were blown away by the talent in this year's Junk Kouture so it was really hard to choose just five RT Wildcards. Well done to everyone who entered Junk Kouture 2021 - you made our job so difficult on the judging panel! It was a tough year for everyone and you put such great effort into your incredible designs. But we had to make a decision and I think our five RT Wildcards will bring something really special to the table. I am very happy with the final 40 designs and I can't wait for the Grand Final it's going to be an amazing spectacle - and as I always say, who knows, we might find the next big thing in fashion!
With even more exciting details yet to be released in relation to the Grand Final, stay up to speed with all things Junk Kouture Powered by RT and Supported by Creative Ireland over on Instagram at @junkkouture, or check out the Junk Kouture website junkkouture.com or download the Junk Kouture app, available for both Android and iOS.
Most recent headlines
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...
22/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
22/12/2025
Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts ...
22/12/2025
Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with...
22/12/2025
Gravity Media prepares for a flight of fancy with the PDC World Darts Championsh...
22/12/2025
One hundred and eighty: Gravity Media on hitting the production bullseye at the ...
22/12/2025
The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content...
22/12/2025
ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Spo...
22/12/2025
ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next ...
22/12/2025
For a decade, popular German podcast Fest & Flauschig has hosted an annual Chris...
22/12/2025
Paramount Scores Largest Share Increase Among Distributors as Paramount and CBS...
22/12/2025
New multi-year deal integrates Roku's data to fuel Nielsen's measurement suite
Roku gains access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, showing The Roku C...
22/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
22/12/2025
Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories A look back at a year highlighted by faculty milestones, major film and television projects, Bob Dylan's ho...
22/12/2025
The works of Plato state that when humans have an experience, some level of change occurs in their brain, which is powered by memory - specifically long-term me...
22/12/2025
Partnership integrates complementary satellite data and AI analytics to enhance security, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring solutions for global cust...
22/12/2025
Workflows allow you to create a sequence of planned events which may be added to your template(s) or inserted directly into your sequential or background playli...
22/12/2025
Monday 22 December 2025
Sky extends PGA TOUR partnership until 2029, as Sky Spo...
22/12/2025
Back to All News
Global Anime Hits and New Releases Take Center Stage at Jump Festa 2026
Entertainment
22 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to clipboar...
22/12/2025
Siobh n McSweeney, Rory McIlroy, Elon Musk, Catherine Connolly, Jim Gavin, Ivan Yates and Traitor Paudie Moloney lead new characters for Callan Kicks the Year 2...
22/12/2025
Winner announced in the picturesque surroundings of Wicklow's Avondale Tower and Treetop Walk
Andrew Trimble wins the show in his first series as coach
Th...
22/12/2025
The 2025 winners have been announced today, Sunday 21 December, for Ireland's largest choral competition Choirs for Christmas hosted by RT lyric fm.
Ove...
21/12/2025
Back to All News
Legoshi and Haru's Story Reaches Its Finale: BEASTARS Fin...
21/12/2025
John Shortt named Young Sportsperson of the Year Kerry are the Team of the Year
...
20/12/2025
Atomos announced the immediate availability of a new firmware update for its Ninja TX GO and Ninja TX monitor-recorders, unlocking ProRes RAW recording from the...
20/12/2025
CJP Broadcast has completed the digitisation of the European Gymnastics tape archive, converting 328 tapes containing more than forty years of recorded material...
20/12/2025
Bitmovin, the leading provider of video streaming solutions, today announced the launch of the Stream Lab MCP Server, to give AI agents and large language model...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Barack Obama Includes Laufey on His 2025 Favorite Music List The former presidents roundup of books, music, and movies includes a song from the Berklee alums ...
20/12/2025
Study reveals a key hormonal circuit in the kidneys Scripps Research scientists identify the protein that helps kidney cells regulate renin, providing foundatio...
19/12/2025
With Playout Release 2025.4, ToolsOnAir continues to push professional playout w...
19/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Diversified's Jared Timmins on AI for Broadcast Sports and Cre...
19/12/2025
2025 SVG Summit Audio Recap: Say What?The Audio Production and Distribution Workshop at the SVG Summit 20 took on issues including speech intelligibility, Next-...
19/12/2025
Gamified fun: Channel 5 on its NFL Big Game Night ambitions with Hungry Bear Med...
19/12/2025
College Football Playoff Preview: For ESPN, Round 1 is a Fantastic Yet Familia...
19/12/2025
AWS's Jason Dvorkin on Developing Partnerships With the NBA and PGA Tour, Em...
19/12/2025
Netflix Kicks Off Packed Sports Week with Paul-Joshua Fight Before Shifting to N...
19/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Nareev Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
19/12/2025
Mounted to the pylon of an AH-1Z Viper helicopter, a Red Wolf vehicle successful...
Harry Styles, Ladies' Day and the meat industry inspire designs that nab coveted Wildcard places
