Ottawa teen earns major award for dress design

An Ottawa high school student is headed to Carnegie Hall to receive a prestigious award for young artists. CTV’s Kimberley Johnson reports.

An Ottawa high school student is heading to Carnegie Hall in New York City to receive a prestigious award for her work in fashion — beating out tens of thousands of hopefuls from across Canada and the United States.

Aoife Swandel, a Grade 12 student at Canterbury High School, is the maker of the Equinox Dress, which has hidden pleats beneath its top layer that are only exposed when the wearer pulls it to the sky. Swandel says she was inspired by another designer and says it’s a dress that signifies change — a metamorphosis.

“I was looking at the transition between winter and spring, which is usually seen as like an ugly period, especially living in Ottawa,” she said. “But I wanted to capture that like split second of the beauty in between the seasons.”

The work has created change for its young designer too, taking Swandel to New York this week to receive a gold medal for its design.

“Kind of crazy,” she said of what she feels. “I mean, it’s always surreal to me because I always applied and my teachers always told me to.”

The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards are the longest-running and most prestigious awards for young artists in the United States.

Categories range from film and animation to fashion and writing. It’s held by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, which says it awards artists who show originality, skill and personal vision.

The awards have been held for 103 years. The organization says in a release that more than 100,000 young people from the United States and Canada entered this year.

Joanna Swim is the former department head of Visual Arts at Canterbury High School. She says while the dress took many hours for Swandel to make, she “kept pushing.”

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“She followed her voice,” Swim said. “She knew what she wanted from the beginning, and she was willing to take ideas and some direction. But she really had a vision in her brain, and she was willing to push ahead until she was happy with the piece.”

Swandel’s mother Tammie Winsor says Swandel found her love of creativity early as a child.

“She’s just she’s unstoppable. Really,” Winsor said.

It was during the pandemic that she found a love of sewing and eventually got a sewing machine.

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“She’s not afraid,” said Winsor. “People often don’t do things, and especially as adults, because we’re nervous. And she’s just not afraid. She free drafts all the time. She gets an idea and she just does it.”

When Swandel accepts the award on Wednesday, she will be among those like designer Zac Posen and writer Stephen King who have done the same.

“To see people like Andy Warhol who have won the same thing, and they got to keep pursuing it,” she says. “I think this is just the beginning, and it’s been really exciting for the future.”

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