Graduate Fashion Week 2008

Sponsored by high street fashion brand River Island, Graduate Fashion Week will this year move to Earls Court 2 from 8-12 June 2008. The venue’s newest hall will showcase GFW's young and upcoming fashion and design talent in a modern and clean manor. Graduate Fashion Week will celebrate the work of more than 1000 BA Degree fashion students from 49 member universities across the UK. For the River Island Gold Award an industry panel will join the audience at the university shows daily to select the best from each show. This selection will be put forward for the final 10 collections for the Gold Award. In addition, the nominated collections from the Pringle Visionary Knitwear Award and Zandra Rhodes Catwalk Textile Awards will also join the selection process. Of the final ten collections the judges choose their menswear and womenswear award winner, in addition to the River Island Gold Award Winner.

A new addition for 2008 is the Fashion Innovation Award. This Award will embrace everything from exhibition/product development to new techniques in thinking and manufacture. Colleges will be invited to submit one entry only and it has been designed to provide a symbolic bridge between the existing divisions of GFW.

It will be a first for the fashion showcase to introduce the new Graduate Fashion Week Education Day on Thursday, 12 June. The educational day will target 14-18 year old school children and those at FE Colleges. The day will be dedicated to the university courses offering a day of research, catwalk shows and careers education.

GFW is open to the general public and everyone has the opportunity to sit alongside international fashion editors, recruiters and talent scouts. Last year’s guests included Victoria Beckham, Lanvin's Alber Elbaz, Mulberry’s Stuart Vevers, Zandra Rhodes, Jimmy Choo OBE, Hilary Alexander (Daily Telegraph), Suzy Menkes (International Herald Tribune).

Image: Kelly Shaw GFW 2007