UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA University of Hawaii student Minako McCarthy's A-line skirt and a camisole design dyed with Kona coffee was the winner of a national apparel design contest.

Student wins design award

Minako McCarthy, a senior in the Apparel Product Design and Merchandising Program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, recently won the top student design award at the Art and Design/Apparel and Textiles Juried Showcase and Exhibition at the American Association of Family & Consumer Sciences 98th Annual Conference & Expo, held in Reno, Nev.

McCarthy created "Kona Dream," a two-piece silk dress dyed with Kona coffee, as part of an APDM 499 course requiring that she create a design utilizing an environmentally friendly product from Hawaii and that she submit her creation in a national or international design competition.

McCarthy conducted extensive research and experimented with the use of Kona coffee dyes on silk fabric in order to create her winning entry. Her concept involved using Kona coffee to explore different shades by dyeing silk to convey two different coffee colors, creamy sweet and bitter strong, a combination of coffee with cream and black coffee.

"Producing two contrasting color variations was challenging," said McCarthy. She used 100 percent silk as her fabric due to its luster, which would "enhance the color to make it appear rich and creamy."

McCarthy took two full days to create a solution for the dark coffee dye and one day to create the light cream dye.