Graduate Fashion Week winner announced

With more buzz surrounding this celebratory 21st anniversary of Graduate Fashion Week than ever before, last night’s glittering gala was a fashion star studded affair as the winner of the Gold award sponsored by George was announced.

Fashion crème de la crème present at the event were  Bip Ling, Jefferson Hack, Mary Katrantzou, Julien Macdonald, Matthew Williamson, Daisy Lowe, Mark Fast, David Koma, Caroline Flack, and Louise Redknapp.

The standout winner was Bath Spa University’s, Chloe Jones who scooped both the best student collection of 2012, as well as taking the Best Womenswear title, with her monastic collection, entitled 'Our Father Who Art in Heaven', which mixed stone-grey chiffon and crystal-embossed sweat-shirting. Sadie Robson, Head of Design for George, says: “Chloe demonstrated such a fresh approach to jersey wear. Her collection was so creative and yet so commercial and fit for today’s fashion.”

The award was presented by the International Herald Tribune's fashion editor, Suzy Menkes, style icon, Daphne Guinness, and Fiona Lambert, George's brand director, all of whom were on the judging panel.

Other top awards presented included; Best Menswear Collection to Riona Horrox of Edinburgh College of Art; Fiona Xiaoping Huang, from UCLAN (University of Central Lancashire) for the Zandra Rhodes Textiles 'crown'; and Karen Jessen, from Berlin's ESMOD, who took the International trophy. Livia Firth the 'green carpet's eco-warrior' presented the Ethical Award to Sarah Murphy, of Northumbria University.

The rernowned British catwalk photographer, Chris Moore, who has covered thousands of shows all over the world for the IHT and other global publications, for more than two decades, was honoured with Graduate Fashion Week's Lifetime Achievement Award.

More than 20,000 people visited GFW at Earl's Court 2 this week to view the collections of more than 1,200 BA fashion graduate students from 40 universities and colleges.