Budding Award Winning Young Fashion Designer seeks help with Education

I have wanted to design and create beautiful clothes for as long as I can remember.

Hi my name is Luke. I am a grade 12 High School Student in South Africa. Every year our School has held a competition called "Young Designers". I have taken part since I started High School. In Grade 8, I won the competition, being the youngest in the history of our School to have one. I won again in Grade 9 and came second in Grades 10 and 11......it was close :)

With Covid-19 this year, most of our lives came to a standstill....and the competition at School was cancelled. I decided to continue and create the design. As always the competition brief (requirements) were that the design had to be created out of recycled materials and according to the theme given by the Competition Organisers. The theme this year was Africa - and how significant for me....I am from Africa's soil!

The dress took about six months for me to make with 95% recyclable materials. And I called it "I am Africa". Let me know what you think ….. I have included pictures.

As it turns out, my dress played a bigger role than just a competition.

The reason I am sharing my story is in the hope of raising funds to help me study towards becoming a Fashion Designer (a remarkable one at that) and to one day work at one of the International Fashion Houses.

I applied to the Design Academy of Fashion in Cape Town, South Africa, an internationally recognised institution for design education. It is costly though, the first year being R100 000 for the 1st year of study and all that is required.

Although I will be moonlighting as a waiter to help with the expense thereof, I still need your help, please.

So I've started a fundraising campaign.

I thought if I could reach a 1000 people who would contribute R100 towards study for next year, it would be a stepping stone towards my dream of one day, becoming a phenomenal Fashion Designer.

As much as I have the extraordinary talent in designing...what is it without the passion and drive, all of this and more, makes the dream.

I would like to leave you with an insert from my Application Essay that that was part of the application requirements to the Design Academy, where I had to write and explain "What does Fashion Design mean to me" :

"Simple, I love Fashion. I am in love with Fashion. It has been my Life, my Soul, and my World. I cannot differentiate my life from Fashion, it is woven into every fiber, it is in my DNA. To remove Fashion from me is to kill me. It is what I eat, what I breathe and what my mind strays to, ever so often".

I hope you will join me on this Fundraising Journey and please link into my Instagram: @luke_atkins_altiere_official.

Thank you for being a stepping stone towards my dream.

Thank you for your time, Luke