Two fashion students in the running for a £20,000 award felt overwhelmed as models strutted their stuff on the catwalk at Earls Court on Monday night.
Brooke Curling, 21, and Hannah Williams, 22, were among the emerging designers whose collections were in the runway show for the University of Creative Arts (UCA) Epsom.
Graduate Fashion Week gives students the chance to prove what they can do to industry insiders in the hope of moving a step closer to success.
Hannah Williams
There was palpable excitement as models walked the white runway wearing clothes, created through months of hard work, towards a scrum of photographers.
Each collection was strikingly different, from angular clothes in the shape of envelopes to flowing grey shirts and outfits reminiscent of wooden blocks.
The clothes, including metallic floral designs, embroidered khaki, bulky furs and bat-like silhouettes, were met with cheers of encouragement from the audience.
Melanie Pace-Lupi
Ms Curling, who was inspired by lederhosen and the dirndl dress, and Ms Williams have been shortlisted for the Gold Award at Graduate Fashion Week.
Ms Williams, who poured liquid silicon into moulds to make her collection, said: "I’ve been coming to Graduate Fashion Week for years now, so to actually show here and have my work selected is unbelievable."
After the runway show, Ms Curling said: "You work day-in-day-out on your collections for months so to receive recognition like this is incredible."
Judges will decide who will make the final 10 for the star-studded Gala Show today.
Hannah Rose Flores
On Monday night, Dean Roni Brown said: "I’m just very proud of our graduates and staff. It’s innovative, fresh, current: it’s great work.
"You sit there agog but within that there’s an immense range of technical and visual skill and thinking."
Elaine Oxborough, mother of Zara, 21, whose white collection was inspired by Inuits - natives who live in the Antarctic - said: "I saw her bits and pieces but to see it all together with their names up in lights was absolutely fantastic."
Edelina Issa
Epsom UCA graduate Jessica Kelly won the Barclays New Business Idea in the Fashion Promotion and Media Awards.
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