Essjay Bennett, 11, has won the guest designer spot at the Dress for Success Fashion show: Through the Ages show. Video / Andrew Warner
Sewing runs in 11-year-old Essjay Bennett’s family.
The Rotorua boy and his mother, Angela Doherty, have been selected as guest designers at the Dress for Success Fashion show: Through the Ages show, hosted by Vanish at AUT on June 22 - it will be the event’s 25th anniversary.
There they will showcase Essjay’s designs which he says are based on anime.
Essjay has been asked to design a new collection for the event encompassing the future of workwear.
“My inspiration for this look,” Essjay says, pointing to an upcycled dinner jacket with rivets down the lapel that he’d hand-pressed himself, “is one of the suits I’ve seen in an anime called Naruto”.
“I learned from my mum, she was either sewing or working.”
She and her son enjoy perusing local secondhand shops for inspiration together. While they enjoy hunting for bargains, Doherty says some shops are expensive and priced as if they were brand-new clothes, but “there’s the ones where you can go in with a bag, give them $5 and fill it up; they’re really good”.
“When we both go shopping, we look for patterns, random stuff that we can use, I get a lot of denim and things like that with mine, he likes silky stuff.”
Doherty is a teacher aide at Essjay’s school, Ngongotahā Primary, and while Vanish is sponsoring Essjay and his whānau, she’s helping raise funds on his givealittle page to take a team to Auckland for the show.
They’re planning to take eight models up with them.
“I like supporting our kids, I always have,” Doherty says.
Eleven-year-old Essjay Bennett was crowned the winner of the Dress for Success x Vanish Recycle the Runway competition back in 2022, and has been invited to the big city create a brand-new collection encompassing the future of workwear. Photo / Supplied
Essjay’s role model Kharl WiRepa, who runs his high-end fashion brand and the Miss Rotorua Foundation, told the Rotorua Daily Post he is “extremely impressed” with Essjay.
“Anyone that wants to go into the fashion industry needs to understand what their look is, what the theme is, what their energy and their vibe represents and that is what makes you stand out from everybody else in the industry, and he knows what his aesthetic is,” WiRepa said.
Doherty says teaching children to sew their own clothes empowers them.
“Simple things like what you’re wearing can help lift your ahua for the day and, for me, lifting people up is what we’re all about. [Essjay] is the same with that, he loves helping people.”
Doherty says her son’s selection helped her realise “instead of dressing kids I could help teach them to dress themselves”, which she does through her Ngongotahā-based business Kiddiewinks.
“Initially upcycling came to me because I can buy cheaper, make the clothes, and sell them cheaper as opposed to buying hundreds of dollars worth of fabric.
“I want to help the kids that need a bit more help with self-image and things like that.”
To further support Essjay’s design work visit his givealittle page.
- This article has been updated to include more information about the Dress for Success event; and Vanish is sponsoring Essjay and his whānau for the event.
