On Feb. 22, McIntosh seniors Chloe Davis and Cianna Ricci traveled to Monaco, a microstate on the French Riviera, to compete at the world finals of the Junk Kouture competition. They won the New York Designer of the Year award for their design “Mother of Poison.”
Junk Kouture is a competition where designers make designs out of recycled goods. The competition only accepts students from Italy, France, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates and the United States, and each entry goes through a series of judges.
The top 10 designers from each of those regional competitions only five finalists are selected from New York, Paris, Milan, London and Abu Dhabi are invited to the Junk Kouture World Final event.
This means Davis and Ricci were the only winners for the U.S. region. Other individual awards such as ready to wear and performance awards were given out.
“Chloe is one of my very best art students. I’ve taught her for three years and just watched her bloom into the artist that she’s become,” McIntosh visual arts teacher Carissa Green said.
Davis designed and modeled while Ricci co-designed. Last year, Davis was a co-designer with Sarah Arriola.
“Last year was an eye opener. [Co-designing] really motivated me to do my own design after seeing how Sarah made her own design,” Davis said.
Their design was called Mother of Poison, which is based on the female superhero Poison Ivy.
“We chose Poison Ivy as our inspiration because she’s a powerhouse and she protects the other plants and the ecosystem. We kind of brought that back to mothers [and] how they protect their daughters,” Ricci said.
The design took them two weeks to create and finalize. They used glass, recycled plastic, water bottles and other materials they were able to find to create the dress.
“We used an old corset top, cheer leggings and sheets for the foundation of the design,” Ricci said.
With designing, cutting and sewing under deadline, Davis and Ricci had to make changes to the original design.
“We unfortunately had to cut the bottom of the skirt because we were scared of time and not having enough materials but I think that it was meant to be because it turned out really good,” Ricci said.
One competition can bring all people from different backgrounds together.”
— Cianna Ricci
Davis and Ricci took connecting flights from Georgia to New York, New York to London and finally London to Monaco.
“[Traveling was] a hassle for everybody and nobody got any sleep,” Davis said.
The duo ended up bringing home The New York Designer of the Year Award. Davis was able to meet new friends with shared interests from different countries.
“It’s even crazier that [we] have a shared interest and understand each other through this one thing, not through just language,” Davis said.
What Ricci took away from the competition was the new friends and experiences from traveling to Monaco.
“One competition can bring all people from different backgrounds together,” Ricci said.
