A TALENTED student has sewn up all the competition and scooped double honours for her dazzling design skills.

Budmouth College student Verity Finney-Green, 17, won the Textile Technology Prize in the county-wide Richard Walker Competition for her first class textiles project work.

The Chickerell teenager has also beaten 4,500 others to win a placement with the National Youth Theatre this summer.

She will be given a rare opportunity to work on stage and costume design with the London theatre company.

Youth theatre leaders were dazzled by Verity’s ‘red carpet’ dress that she hand-crafted for her textiles A-level course.

Verity spent 100 hours creating the intricately-designed dress, staying behind after school to get it completed.

It is accessorised with a specially designed bag, a pair of shoes and a fascinator.

She said: “I called the dress ‘Dreaming of Autumn Trees’. It’s made out of raw silk, crystal organze and lame metallic.

“I went to Stourhead Gardens to collect leaves so I had some inspiration for it.

“My mum saw it and said it was unbelievable.”

Verity said her role model is the costume designer Sandy Powell, who won an Oscar for her work on The Young Victoria, which was written by West Dorset-based Julian Fellowes.

“I love going to see different productions. The last one I saw was ‘Love Never Dies’.”

Organisers of the Richard Walker prize invited Verity and her family to Bournemouth University to collect her prize.

“There were quite a lot of people put forward for the prize so I was really pleased to get it and so were my family,” she said.

Textiles teacher Liz Fabbri said Verity is a ‘delight’ to teach.

She added: “Verity is one of our hardest working and most dedicated students.

“She’s so committed to textiles and lives and breathes it.

“I think she’s going to fly when she gets to university and enters the industry.”

Verity volunteers with Weymouth Drama Club making costumes. She recently designed two costumes for an upcoming production and wants to become a theatre costume designer.