Fashion awards go live

Designers Peter O’Brien and Carolyn Donnelly teamed up this week to launch the Persil Irish Fashion Awards for 2013. The brief this year to student applicants is “to celebrate their Irish heritage, their roots, ties and family”, which allows plenty of scope for innovation and interpretation. Now the largest student fashion design competition in Ireland (where, unlike the UK, there is generally little support from government or industry for fashion), the first prize of €10,000 could jump start a promising career.

The outfits of the eight finalists’ will be showcased in selected Dunnes Stores during next June and an item from the winning collection will go into commercial production. A red coat by last year’s winner Hannah Furlong sold out overnight in Dunnes Stores.