Today there are more young people who want to have a university career, either with the help of their parents and a scholarship or with a part-time job, but they make a great effort to finish their university studies.
An example of this is the story of this girl, who one year before graduating from high school, signed up for a creative contest to win a scholarship and be able to go to college.
Larissa Leon is a 17-year-old from Sunnyside, Washington in the United States who recently won a $10,000 prize in the Stuck at Prom duct tape scholarship contest to pay for college and fulfill her dream of becoming a dermatologist.
Stuck at Prom is a scholarship contest that gives teens across the country the opportunity for a $10,000 scholarship. The dynamics of the contest is that the participants have to create a dress or a tuxedo completely with adhesive tape and then the jury chooses the winning outfit.
For the girl with a Mexican mother, it was a dream come true, since she assures that it was an opportunity that she had been waiting for a long time, because since she was a child she liked to make things with adhesive tape, such as purses, bags, hair accessories and even she even made a mermaid tail.
It is likely that from a very young age I began to be obsessed with adhesive tape; since I was five years old I have always been fascinated by designing and creating. When I heard that Duct Tape had a grant I knew I had to make a special creation. I was inspired by the folk style dresses that come from both indigenous and Spanish practices.
Her Mexican heritage was one of the main things that inspired her to create the folkloric dress, as she loves its ribbon decorations, colorful flowers, and bare shoulders. That is why her dress has details with flowers, lace and ribbons.
The dress was designed to honor my culture, to pay homage to my roots. Something that many of my friends and family thought was impossible.
But she didn’t just focus on making the dress, she also created a bag, hair accessories, and shoes made out of duct tape.
The dress is made with 47 rolls of duct tape, most of which are black with multi-color details. The girl took about 163 hours to finish it.
Larissa posted some photos and a video of the process of making her dress on her social networks, so people could vote for her.
The dress is made up of a flared skirt with colorful lines, wholesale ruffles, as well as an off-the-shoulder blouse with flower details, such as colored openwork on the edges to simulate fabric lace.
Through her TikTok account, she shared a video in which she says that she wants to win that contest to follow her dream of being a dermatologist.
@larithebrand The duck tape scholarship finalists get chosen tomorrow and I’m scared let’s hope for the best🙏 #stuckatprom #ducktape #promdress #mexican #latino 
♬ original sound – Kanyeeast
Sharing videos and photos of her dress on social networks was a success, as she began to accumulate visits and before the finalists were announced, she published a clip in which she said how nervous she was about the results. That recording reached four million likes.
Spent almost about 50 hours on this dress and still not done. But we won this scholarship🤞#stuckatprom pic.twitter.com/tuDnqN60PU
— lari (@leon_lari33) June 2, 2021
Her mother has always supported her and has even encouraged her ability to create and design, so since 2010 she began to buy her adhesive tape for her creations.
There are many scholarships today, as Larissa says, there are many programs, there are many supports, and sometimes we don’t know one of the parents. There are many parents who don’t know how to help their children, how to apply for college.
– Maria Perez, mother of Larissa
We hope that Larissa will continue to share her innovative duct tape creations so that we can appreciate her art.