School student Penny Woods was inspired by Oil Free Otago protests to enter a competition with this dress – and won second place. The dress is made from anti deep-sea drilling banners. Here’s what Penny told us:

What inspired me was that I really wanted to make a statement about oil drilling because it is bad for the environment and NZ is a green country and we don’t want to have oil drilling in our country because it isn’t environmentally friendly.

The corset on my dress represents animals being suffocated from a oil spill, because it is tight fitting and sticks to the skin like oil does to animals.

The skirt represents the waves and the flow of the ocean by the ruffles on the right side of the skirt. The ruffles only being on the right side of the skirt represents how unique the ocean is and it shows off the oceans natural beauty.

The fabric I used isn’t elegant or pretty so it shows off the ugliness of a oil spill and the clash of the colours come together to make a beautiful dress and creature of the sea.

-Penny Woods