Chloe Broaders, dressmaker
Chloe Broaders, who is 16 and from Bray, Co Wicklow, has been making her own clothes since she was 13. One day, not wanting to wear what everybody else was wearing, she decided to "go out on a limb and get Mom's sewing machine out", using material from a local store and from cut-up charity-shop clothes.
At first she relied on help from her mother, who also began making her own clothes at 13. Creativity is clearly in the blood. Realising that she loved designing clothes, she enrolled on a summer dressmaking course at Wexford Institute of Fashion Design, in Gorey. By the end of it she had made a black velvet pirate coat with red lining, gold stripes and turned-up sleeves. The skills she learned mean she can now make whatever she wants.
Chloe is a great admirer of the "outrageous" style of Vivienne Westwood. She can't pin down any one inspiration, however. "I was watching CSI last night, and suddenly I imagined a polka-dot dress I wanted to make. It came out of nowhere."
Her outfits are not necessarily cheaper than anything she could buy, because she likes "extravagant stuff". Her favourite piece started out as a black corset and a plain skirt. She transformed the corset with orange and white material and made puffy sleeves, modelled on the style of the 1800s, to go with it. To the skirt, she added lace and drastically altered the shape. It cost €300 in all.
Chloe's worst experience was spending two days making an outfit that she envisioned would have a Mardi-Gras feel. She ran out of material, though, and by the end bits were falling off. "It was a disaster," she says.
But mishaps like that are few and far between. "I wake up with a different obsession every day," she says. "One day I want to be a mermaid, the next a 1940s club girl, the next Alice in Wonderland."
She hopes to study at the National College of Art & Design. She could be a name to watch out for.
In conversation with Ciara Hackett, a transition year student at Loreto Abbey, Dalkey.