MAY 2008

FASHION FRINGE HAS FOUND A PERMANENT HOME

After five years of showing in different – but very exciting – venues, Fashion Fringe is delighted to announce it now has a permanent home. From now on everything to do with Fashion Fringe will be staged in Covent Garden, who, to our great pleasure, have joined our list of supporters. We feel it is a very appropriate liaison as Fashion Fringe was initiated with the intention of re-focusing interest on London as a credible fashion centre and, as we all know, Covent Garden ‘says’ London the world over. The other reason is that the whole area is scheduled for re-development, with a strong emphasis on high quality fashion retailing.


AMINAKA WILMONT

Now that the April showers are over making way for the sunshine gives everyone a good
reason for buying the sunglasses (available at Superdrug) designed by our winner last year, Aminaka Wilmont

The Aminaka Wilmont label has been extremely well received by customers across the globe. Items that have rapidly sold out on Net-A-Porter include their pleated leather jackets and caped tank coats. “It is impressive to see such strong sales from a debut brand and we look forward to the launch of their FW08 collection which we know our customers will love” – Alison Loehnis, Net-A-Porter.com.


JUDGING PANEL

The Fashion Fringe 2008 applications are now in and the sifting has begun in earnest. The task is to bring down the number to 10 Semi-Finalists from whom we will choose 4 to go forward to the final judging in September. We are especially excited over our judges this year. Regular supporters Anne Pitcher of Selfridges; Jonathon Akeroyd of Alexander McQueen; Roland Mouret; Natalie Massenet of Net-A-Porter and Roy Peach of The London College of Fashion are joined by Lucinda Chambers of British Vogue with Donatella Versace chairing the panel.






FASHION FRINGE SHOES

For some time we have been thinking about a Fashion Fringe involvement with the vibrant world of accessories, wondering how we could incorporate shoe design into our formula to find and sustain new talent in different fields. And we have found a way! Working with young British shoe designer Rupert Sanderson we have initiated our first selection to find an exciting young shoe designer working in the U.K. But, of course, as with our womenswear winners, we believe that finding is only the first step on a mentoring journey, so the winner will spend time working with Rupert and going out to learn the ‘nuts and bolts’ of shoe design in Rupert’s factory in Italy, for what is virtually an old style apprenticeship of a least six months. All international travel, subsistence and accommodation is provided by Rupert. We are pleased that his generosity has enabled this to happen and hope that it will lead to similar schemes to help designers working in this vital but often underestimated area of fashion. We are pleased to announce that the selection panel, chaired by Manolo Blahnik, consists of Rupert Sanderson; Paula Reed of Grazia; Natalie Massenet of Net-A-Porter and Sebastian Manes of Selfridges.


ROAD SHOW

Finally, for the last few years we have held road shows in order to publicise Fashion Fringe and make potential entrants aware of the selection and rules for entry. Helped by Harvey Nichols and Malmaison Hotels, we have, in addition to London, visited Birmingham, Bristol, Dublin, Edinburgh and Leeds, taking with us Harvey Nichols buyers, and designers such as Christopher Bailey, Giles Deacon and Julian Macdonald and past winners, in order to get our message across.

Although the road-shows were effective in catching our potential audience with the support of local media, this year, with our carbon footprint in mind, we decided to try a different approach. With the help of Vogue.com and The London College of Fashion, a public meeting was held to discuss London Fashion and invited previous Fashion Fringe winners Erdem, Marcus Wilmont of Aminaka Wilmont to join Giles Deacon, Sophia Neophitou-Apostolou, Editor in Chief of 10 Magazine; Natalie Massenet of Net-A-Porter.com; Averyl Oates of Harvey Nichols and Dolly Jones of Vogue.com to form a discussion panel, chaired by Colin McDowell. The event, streamed on Vogue.com was a great success and one lucky member of the audience walked out that evening not only with her head full of fascinating facts but in her hand, a Stella McCartney bag generously donated by Net-A-Porter!


From the Fashion Fringe Team x