A Night of Young Talent - the 2011 FDC Young Designer Awards

It was an incredible event, filled with talent, colour, smiley happy faces and supporting friends and family. That was the night of 29th of October 2011 at the Novotel St. Pancras in London , where the 2011 FDC Young Designer Awards took place.

It was such a refreshing , inspiring evening to see all that young potential presented on the catwalk.

The youngest girl who competed for the 2011 CELEBRATION OF YOUNG FASHION DESIGNERS AWARD and who also won the 1st Price was Abbie Miriam Ivy Smith. She took her inspiration from the famous impressionist painter Monet. As she writes on her presentation Moodboard : 'Monet was very inspired by his lily pond. So I wanted to have Japanese influence on my design. In Japan they use alot of hand painted silk fabrics. I have painted the bottom of the dress with a stipple brush to create the watery effect Monet uses, with the help of soft pastel colours.'

 The used colour scheme is purple, green, gold and teal.

Abbie Miriam Ivy Smith - 1st Place of the Celebration of Young Fashion Designer Awards

Second Place goes to Tumisola Landega, who found her inspiration in the work of Russian painter Kandinsky. It seems that the younger generation has an inclination towards the Fine Arts and Painting. The name of her garment , which is called 'Primary Collage' was established because 'the front is yellow, red and blue and the tail is a collage of designs from Kandinsky's different paintings. I choose to put two shades of yellow to tone each other out, a half skirt of blue because it shows that the skirt is  incomplete like the circle in the painting. I also made my own checks by hand weaving black velvet ribbon throw to white material. The tail is my own version of a Kandinsky painting.' This is what Tumisola states on her moodboard abouth the construction and inspiration of her dress.

The second category for which the highly talented youngsters competed was the Young Designer Award , with its winner Holly Jane Allen . Take a glimpse of that beautiful outfit under the UMBRELLA, ELA ELA ELA...

  

The third category was the Avant-Garde Designer Award with its two winners : Aimee Ward (1st place) and 'little McQueen' going second , the very talented Michael Wallace.

So here you have it : Miss Aimee Ward with her 'Ethereal Reptile' garment with metal embelishments. Her inspiration came from ''watching the video Platos Atlantis by Nick Knight, as part of McQueen's SS 2010 collection, which featured snakes wrapped around a woman's body. I also took inspiration from other avant-garde garments by McQueen, alot of which are inspired by natural forms and in particular birds and reptiles. To develop my theme I visited the Natural History Museum, where I took inspiration from a snake skeleton, symbolised on my garment by the metal coreset and scattered scale embellishments.

As for the 'little McQueen' himself I must say he did a very good job in mastering his McQueen inspired garment. It was beautiful! So McQueen, so extravagant, so elegant, so miysterious and gracious. Absolutely loved his creation and hands down in my opinion the best outfit of the evening.

4th Category and from what I understood the most important one was the RADICAL DESIGNER AWARD who's winner gets a very special showcase at the Seattle Fashion Week USA.

AAAaaaand the winners of this year's radical design are: 1st: Josephine Kyomuhendo 2nd: Rosie Olivia and 3rd: Hemasree Bose.

Josephine Kyomuhendo 1st Place Radical Designer Award

Josephine Kyomuhendo

Rosie Olivia 2nd Place

Hemasree Bose 3rd Place

And the JEANSATION Competition's Winner will get to showcase in a finale in Monte Carlo Monaco. The outstanding winner of this competition was Tonje Arnesen with her 'horns' collection:

For more information and photos on the event feel free to visit :


The Official FDC Young Designer Awards Website 
and
Unpolished Sapphire Facebook Page

And also I would like to express a special Thank You to Ms. Joanna Marcella for organizing the event and for the Press Accreditation!