Creative Oaklands College student makes dress out of Herts Advertisers

While many use the Herts Advertiser as their go-to source for local news, one creative student has come up with a different use for the paper.

Lucy Barnes, 19, is doing a Foundation Diploma in Art and Design at Oaklands College and was given the Herts Ad as a brief to mark the paper’s 160th anniversary last year.

She recently completed her project, in which she made a dress out of the ‘births, marriages and deaths’ section of the paper using papier mâché.

Lucy said: “We were given the brief and I think am the only one who took it quite literally. One girl, for example, got her inspiration from the sinkhole and made an outfit inspired by that.

“I decided to use the birth, marriages and deaths section of the paper because I think that’s at the centre of the community. I went through choosing different pictures and excerpts.

“I made the top part of the dress with papier mâché and a corset. It was a little bit of a struggle to get it on!”

Lucy began researching the project in November and started making the dress in January.

She added: “I finished it just before half term and my teacher is yet to see it.”

Lecturer in Fashion, Litsa Efstathiou, said: “Lucy’s dress is an example of the beautiful pieces our students have created to celebrate 160 years of the Herts Advertiser.

“This was a challenging brief That gave students the chance to research the newspaper and be inspired to create original pieces of art that will be displayed at an exhibition later this year, which we’re all really excited about.”