Buncrana businessman Troy Armour is plotting to expand his company, Junk Kouture, to runways all around the world.
A crowdfunding campaign gets underway today with the goal of raising an additional €410,000 of seed equity to bring the company to new markets.
Junk Kouture, which began in Ireland, is the world’s largest youth sustainability event.
Using only recycled materials, students embark on a nine-month program of ideation and are challenged to envision, design, create and model wearable haute couture styled from everyday junk with the ultimate goal of qualifying for a spot in a Junk Kouture Grand Final.
LONDON, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 13: Designers wear their couture creations made exclusively from discarded rubbish to launch Junk Kouture in the UK on September 13, 2021 in London, England.
Photo by Antony Jones/Getty Images for Junk Kouture
Donegal students have enjoyed success in the competition over the years. The 2020 competition was won by students from Carndonagh Community School – Brónach Harkin, Robyn O’Donnell and Orlaith Doherty.
With 15,000 Kouture designs created, 10 tours completed, 60 sold-out arena shows and a community of over 350,000 aspiring artists, designers, engineers and supporters, Junk Kouture is said to be “ideally positioned to scale into the 13 fashion cities of the world over the next 2 years”.
Over 1,000 schools in the UK, Ireland, USA, France, Italy and the UAE are already actively engaged with Junk Kouture with more joining the programme every week.
The future vision lies in New York, Armour says.
As Sustainable Living Partner for this year’s New York Climate Week, Troy Armour travelled to the city and said: “Junk Kouture ticks all the boxes for brands and media companies that are looking to engage in more environmentally conscious activities while also engaging with Gen Zs who will be the most eco-conscious consumers of our time.”
Armour continued: “Junk Kouture’s goal is to reach 1 billion people in 10 years worldwide. The recent meetings with companies leading the way in innovation and climate change in New York have only roused this goal and how achievable it is. But to do this, we need an additional runway and it makes sense to open up the extension of our seed funding to the public who share our goal and vision through crowdfunding.”
Troy Armour, CEO, Junk Kouture
The crowdfunding will be used to support the cost of maximising demand in New York as well as London, Paris, Milan and Abu Dhabi. As one of the world’s media capitals and fashion capitals, New York is a strategically important city for Junk Kouture to attract.
From Inishowen to Manhattan, Armour now has set his sights on bringing the event to the world’s most famous arena.
He said: “We are seeing incredibly strong interest from New York schools for Junk Kouture. Over 400 teachers from New York attended our webinar in June and we have incredible support from the NY Mayor’s Sustainability Office and Department of Education. We have to meet this momentum and crowdfunding offers our organisation the ignition to get a larger team on the ground in New York for the current academic year. We’ve sold out the 3Arena 5 times, our goal is to sell out Madison Square Garden.”
Junk Kouture has launched its crowdfunding campaign through the Seedrs crowdfunding platform. Recent seed funding of €860,000 and a successful crowdfunding campaign would bring Junk Kouture’s total funding to date to €1.27m.
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