Graduate Fashion Week sponsored by River Island reached a spectacular climax last night with a star-studded Gala show and award ceremony at London's Earls Court 2. The judging panel consisting of fashion designer Julien Macdonald, supermodel Claudia Schiffer and editor of Elle magazine Lorraine Candy, had spent the whole day squirreled away trying to decide who would walk off with the 3 most prestigious prizes.
Judging by the fantastically high standard this year it must have been a tough call to make, but in the end Jessica Au from Ravensbourne took The Gold Award for her outstanding collection of floral print tailored menswear to add to the Zandra Rhodes Catwalk Textiles Award which she scooped earlier in the evening.
The highly competitive Womenswear Award went to Nabil El Nayal from Manchester School of Art for a beautifully elegant and sculptural collection in a monochrome palette that wouldn't look out of place on a Viktor and Rolf catwalk. The Menswear Award went to Domingo Rodriguez from Liverpool John Moores University for a subtly executed vision of modern menswear featuring subtle blacks and greys and delicate tailoring mixed with sheer fabrics and chunky knitwear.
A whole host of fashion's elite turned out to support the new breed of British fashion talent including model Agyness Deyn, designers Henry Holland & Gareth Pugh, stylist Gok Wan, face of Graduate Fashion Week Pixie Geldof, Harper's Bazaar editor Lucy Yeomans and fashion design legend Zandra Rhodes. Fashion is one of the UK's most successful and lucrative exports, and our former fashion students make up the backbone of most of the leading design houses around the world. As Claudia Schiffer put it "Around the world when companies are trying to hire young designers they would love to have them come from British universities. It's very interesting how it works, because what's weird is that the most important fashion shows are not really in London, they are in Paris, Milan and New York, yet everyone wants to work with British fashion designers."
And this year's show was one of the best in the history of Graduate Fashion Week so let the bidding wars begin!
Check out our top picks from the Graduate Fashion Week catwalk shows
Watch interviews with Agyness Deyn and Gok Wan at Graduate Fashion Week here
Check out more backstage interviews from Graduate Fashion Week
Watch interviews with the fashion glitterati who give their top tips on how to succeed in the fashion business
Check out what we have in store for you during the month of September over at our 30 Days of Fashion & Beauty site
