Pine Frond Garment Takes Top Prize at Fashion Awards

Pine Frond Garment Takes Top Prize at Fashion Awards
Hundreds of pine fronds were used to create an intricate ball-gown that took the top prize at Saturday's fashion art awards.

Dubbed Pine Couture, Isabel Aitchison's garment was made from Norfolk pine fronds collected beneath the towering trees at Ngamotu Beach.

Isabel (14) gathered boxes of the fronds - known by many as monkey tails - in the weeks leading up to Saturday night's Taranaki Daily News Fashion Art Awards.

She painstakingly glued the green, gold and brown fronds to a calico dress she had made - with stunning results.

Isabel, who modelled her creation, was the supreme award winner at the event. She also won the student section of the Nature's Living Magic category with the dress.

Yesterday, the New Plymouth Girls' High School student was relaxing after weeks of late nights perfecting her entry - one of three she worked on.

Isabel said she was at Ngamotu Beach when the idea to make the dress using pine fronds came to her.

"I always knew that I wanted to make something that from a distance looked like an actual fashionable garment, but it was just finding what I wanted to make it with," said Isabel, who has entered the awards for the past four years.

"Then I was at the beach with my friends and I though monkey tails would look really nice, they are different colours and they could bend