On to a winner

"She has great taste, great potential and should have a great future," says Peter O'Brien, one of the judges of the €10,000 Persil Fashion Awards, of this year's winner Joanne Power, who collected her prize last night at the grand final on the Late Late Show.

From Cork, the 26-year-old student who graduates from NCAD this summer was the obvious winner, according to O’Brien. “Good design screams out loud,” he said. “Her outfit was very pretty and well thought out. Very often the effort taken with details like labels or garment bags shows a kind of perfectionism, and hers were beautifully executed.” There were eight finalists, and the other judges were stylist Catherine Condell and Carmel Brehony, MS Marketing Manager.

For Power, the win means not only €10,000, but also a two-week placement in Marks Spencer’s design studio in London under Neil Hendy, head of womenswear, with all expenses paid. Her dress (pictured left) in hand-pleated white nylon, cotton and tulle, based on reworked patterns from the 1900s, will go on display along with the seven other outfits in selected MS outlets in Ireland, starting with Grafton Street, today.

Currently in its 10th year, the Persil award is the largest fashion design competition in Ireland, and this year drew a record number of entries from colleges all over the country. The year 2009 also marks the centenary of the world’s first soap powder which was created in Germany in 1903. The brief for the competition was for students to think about the word centenary and their take on how fashion has evolved over that time. Entries, as always, had to be machine washable. For Power, the award means she can further her studies and do an MA course, “and maybe set up in business again, a little wiser and more mature.”