Fashion Fringe celebrates its 10th birthday
Fashion Fringe, the initiative set up in 2003 by fashion witer Colin McDowell and IMG Fashion to support emerging designers, celebrated its 10th anniversary last night, with a party at The London Film Museum in Covent Garden.
The event showcased Fashion Fringe's nine winners: Basso & Brooke, Erdem, Gavin Douglas, Amnka Wilmont, Eun Jeong, Jena Theo, Corrie Nielsen, Fyodor Golan and this year's winner Haizhen Wang. The programme gives embryo fashion talent the tools to develop a successful business via professional mentorship and grants and boasts Burberry's Christopher Bailey as its Chairman.
Erdem, who scooped Red Carpet Designer of the Year at this week's British Fashion Awards, was the initiative's second winner back in 2005, chosen by a panel including Rosemarie Bravo, Alexandra Shulman, Jade Jagger, Joan Burstein, Hamish Bowles, Louise Wilson, Roland Mouret while other notable judges have included Donatella Versace, Tom Ford and John Galliano who crowned Scottish designer Corrie Nielsen as the winner in 2010.
The highlight of the evening was the unveiling of a bespoke look by each of the past Fashion Fringe winners. Commented McDowell: "This is a very exciting moment for anyone who truly cares about British Fashion. I look back 10 years and I remember a fashion city in disarray. My solution - which happily has worked - was to look at why it was in such a state. The main reason was far too many young designers were going out of business or going out of the Country to earn a living in Milan or New York."
The reason, he continued was that "most of our designers were missing a vital component in the equation for success, no one was telling them that they needed to take notice of the business side of being a fashion designers. I firmly believe that Fashion Fringe turned that around."
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