Winner Lauren Smith and her designs
The winner of the much coveted George Gold Award has been announced at Graduate Fashion Week.
Lauren Smith, from Edinburgh College of Art beat off hundreds of aspiring fashion designers with her designs that impressed the prestige panel of judges.
The 23-year-old's designs impressed the likes of Roland Mouret, David Gandy, Todd Lynn, Henry Holland and George Brand Director Fiona Lambert.
Following in the Gold Award winning footsteps of fashion royalty such as Stella McCartney, Julien MacDonald and Christopher Bailey, Lauren will be given a head-start in the retail industry, winning a four week fully paid internship at George House with George’s team of leading designers.
In addition to this priceless break, she will also receive invaluable mentoring from George’s Brand Director, Fiona Lambert, plus a cool £20,000 cash prize to get their fashion career off the ground.
Lauren Smith, George Gold Award winner 2013 said: “I am utterly overwhelmed and speechless to have been awarded the George Gold Award. It was so unexpected and an amazing feeling to see my designs on the catwalk. I can’t believe Roland Mouret spoke so highly of my designs, I’m thrilled.”
Lauren will work with Fiona with the in-house team at George to produce and stock her designs for George and George.com as part of the new G21 Talent label. Lauren will be joined by six other graduates – to be announced in due course - to join the G21 Talent collective and design for George’s newest graduate fashion label. G21 Talent comprises of a series of limited edition, catwalk inspired collections designed by hand picked fashion designers from Graduate Fashion Week.
Fiona Lambert, George Brand Director, commented: “We’ve had a fantastic week meeting all of the graduates and seeing their work. We’ve been genuinely amazed by the quality, creativity and professionalism of this year’s graduates. We chose Lauren as the George Gold Award winner because her designs reflected her character and showed real vision and craftsmanship. I’m looking forward to working with her and producing her range for George and George.com.”
George has been committed to nurturing British design creativity since 2011, through its sponsorship of Graduate Fashion Week. George has helped launch numerous careers and enhance the growth and development of a huge number of graduates.
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