15 October 2018

Year 12 Genazzano College, Kew, student Megan Grimshaw has been awarded the inaugural VCE Product Design Student Award at the Victorian Premier's Design Awards for her garment Reinventing Plastic Waste.

Megan incorporated plastic waste in an innovative way in the design of her garment, making use of fabrics made from 50 percent post-consumer plastic bottles, post-consumer plastic sheets, used plastic bags and bottle caps.

Megan reflects on her award:

On Wednesday 13 September, I was invited to Queens Hall Parliament House to receive the Premier’s Design Award in the first ever Secondary School Category.

I created an outfit last year during my VCE subject Product Design and Technology. The outfit was a functional outfit that incorporated plastic waste in an innovative way, to illustrate how single-use plastics can be repurposed. My garment and folio were selected to be exhibited in the VCE Top Designs exhibition earlier this year at the Melbourne Museum.

The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) submitted my garment into the Premier’s Design Awards. These awards ‘recognise and reward Victorian designers and businesses that display excellence in the way they use design’ as well as recognising the important role design has in ‘shaping a better environment and society’.

It was such a privilege to be able to receive this award alongside outstanding designers and business men and women, who had created innovative design solutions to many social challenges. I believe in celebrating design particularly at secondary school level as it is important to foster and encourage the importance of creative thinking.

Megan has also been asked to speak at the Design and Technology Teachers Association National Conference later in the year.