Graduate fashion week

Daily Fashion Juice
Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Graduate fashion week: knitwear, zips and chain-mail scoop £20,000 prize

BA student Rory Longdon impresses panel of designers and fashion writers with wearably 'bold yet simple idea'

Rory Longdon's winning design at Graduate fashion week Photograph: Catwalking.com
A collection that included ribbed knitwear, zips and a modern take on chain mail has scooped the top prize at Graduate fashion week. Rory Longdon, a BA student from Nottingham Trent University, won the George gold award and £20,000 to further his career. The event, now in its 20th year, is a nationwide celebration of the new stars of British fashion. The gold award was judged by a panel of experts, including the designer Amanda Wakeley, Patrick Grant, the menswear design star behind the much lauded Savile Row label E Tautz, and Lucy Yeomans, editor of glossy magazine Harper's Bazaar. They praised Longdon's "bold yet simple idea" which translated into a wearable collection. "It was cohesive and immaculately constructed with outstanding craftsmanship," they said. Other big winners at Earls Court included Marissa Owen of the University of Central Lancashire, who won the womenswear award, and Felix Chabluk Smith of Edinburgh College of Art, who took home the menswear accolade. Organisers at this year's event were keen to highlight to graduates that there is more to the fashion industry than the high glamour of being a catwalk designer. The sponsor George emphasised the diversity of career choices available in an industry that directly employs around 816,000 people. Scouts for the brand were actively recruiting at the four-day event – searching for the fashion savvy and pragmatic among the 5,000 new graduates joining the job market this summer. They were looking for students who might become successful buyers or marketing executives, rather than simply hunting down the next Alexander McQueen. Cressida Pye, director of fashion recruitment consultancy Smith & Pye, also on the look out for new talent said: "It's very good to sign up graduates early – it's a bit like gardening, you have to nurture them. There are very, very few people who go on and are backed to do their own labels. But the majority of the designers go on to become the backbone of huge design teams at the likes of Burberry."