Peggy McGrath. Remember that name. You’ll be seeing it on the tag of your favorite garment in 10 years – mark my words!
This fashion-focused pocket-sized powerhouse just graduated from UC’s DAAP program and already has a job designing woven tops at American Eagle.
As a crowning moment to end this Kenwood native’s senior year at UC, she won a huge award: the Saks Fifth Avenue Cincinnati Design Award. This earned her $1000 cash from Saks and a Saks window display on 5th St completely dedicated to her and her designs.
All seniors in UC’s DAAP fashion design program create a collection of four to eight garments as their capstone experience. The winner of the Saks award is selected by members of the Cincinnati Saks Executive Team during the students’ final critique at the end of May. Saks’ judges looks for collections that are creative, innovative, and wearable.
Peggy said her collection, cleverly titled “Cowboys and Indians,” was inspired by just that: western wear and also a trip to India. She said India’s fabric houses inspired her to use unique fabrics and the architecture there inspired her unique shapes and patterns. The western influence gave the looks fringe, cuffs and some even cowboy boots and hats.
For a few of the garments and accessories, she laser cut a trellace shape out. One dress overlay she cut it out of metallic velvet and another dress’ overlay was out of pigskin suede. She even created a necklace out of the pigskin pattern pieces and painted them gold and them fastened them with grommets. The third dress in the display Peggy actually hand-knitted.
I loved all three pieces in the window at Saks and could see myself wearing all three. When you walk by (which I highly encourage you to do) it doesn’t look out of place. Her garments look so posh and polished that they fit right in with all the other high-end designers you typically see in Saks display windows.
Make sure you drive/walk by asap! The Saks marketing manager said she’s not sure how long the window will be up – but it will be up until this Friday for sure!
Watch the webcast below that I did with Peggy yesterday to virtually meet this fashion superstar in the making!
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