Bath Spa University fashion student, Stephanie Kitchen, has been selected as one of 15 undergraduate finalists in the 2013 Fashion Awareness Direct (FAD) competition.
Stephanie Kitchen, a BA (Hons) Fashion Design student will be representing Bath Spa as one of only 12 colleges and universities in the UK to have a student in the final.
Stephanie and the fourteen other finalists were selected from over 100 entries submitted to FAD over the last year in which they were asked to design optimistic solutions for the next decade. The brief challenged students to ‘look forward and explore’ and asked students to envisage a key development or change taking place in the next ten years, and design two outfits which respond to it.
The catwalk final is set to take place at London Fashion Week in February 2013 as part of the Vauxhall Fashion Scout showcase where aspiring young designers compete for vital funding and top industry placements. The contestants have until February to make their final designs which will be judged by a top industry panel including iconic fashion journalist and talent spotter Hilary Alexander.
Commenting on making the final, Stephanie said: “I am so excited to have been selected for the FAD final. I really enjoyed working on such an inspiring brief and am really grateful to have been given the opportunity to showcase my designs during the London Fashion week.”
Louise Pickles, Course Leader and Coordinator of Fashion at Bath Spa, added: “This is the fourth year that we have had finalists in the FAD competition, and we are thrilled that Stephanie will now have the opportunity to develop her collection and showcase at Vauxhall Fashion Scout to the fashion industry in February.
“Developing this collection at the same time as her own collection for her degree will be challenging, and we wish her every success for the finals.
“This has been a successful year for the Fashion Design course at Bath; Stephanie’s success follows that of Chloe Jones who won the Gold Award at Graduate Fashion Week in June 2012 and helps to confirm the high level of creativity, quality, and professionalism of our students.”
This is the twelfth year that creative charity FAD has run the competition with the aim of challenging fashion students to think outside the commercial box, encouraging them to look to art, culture and wider social trends in their research and design work.
