Huddersfield celebrates success at Fashanne Awards show
Fashion and textiles student Lucy Brown has become the first student from the University of Huddersfield to win a first prize at the prestigious Fashanne Designers of the Future Awards.
Lucy won in the Textile Design category with a collection that was inspired by mental health challenges and the popular HBO series Euphoria.
"Mental health is important to me, having lost a friend recently to suicide, so I wanted to make my collection inspired by struggle but also using the influence of Euphoria's costume design and plot lines," says Lucy.
"Each character has their own battles, including growing up and dealing with grief, addiction and mental illness. The stigma behind mental health will never change unless society can normalise uncomfortable conversations.
"I developed artworks during textiles experimentation, that I developed until I had print designs for my garments. I want the prints to evoke emotions and encourage people to be open about their mental wellbeing. I experimented with many different medias to develop artwork for textiles application. I also created textiles sampling of quotations and feelings through free machine embroidery."
Lucy Brown steps onto stage to collect her award from Anne Davies, Katie Greenyer and Patrick GrantThere was even more good news for the University at the Fashanne Awards, with Georgina Walls named as runner-up in the same category as Lucy. Nadia Hadhrami was runner-up in Womenswear design, while Emily Oakes was runner-up in Athleisure Design.
“It’s the first time Huddersfield has won at Fashanne, and it really is a great achievement especially as these students have studied mostly through the pandemic,” says Devabrata Paramanik, Course Leader in Fashion Design and Textiles. “They suffered and had to make a lot of compromises due to COVID-19, but our facilities didn’t let them down. In fact, the students were incredibly positive and strong throughout.
“I am very confident that Lucy is going to accomplish a lot in the future. All the others who were nominated at Fashanne 2022 have a bright future, they may have been classed as ‘runners up’, but each category only had a winner or another named so to be in the frame is a great achievement that they should be proud of.”
Claire Evans, Senior Lecturer in Fashion and Textiles, added that, “Getting eight final year fashion design students shortlisted and four winners in the Fashanne Awards has been a real achievement.
“All the students demonstrated an outstanding level of creativity, skill, and professionalism that we are sure will serve them well in their future career pathways. Students are able to draw on the breadth of fashion design staff knowledge to support them in preparing their entries and final collections and these wins are a credit to the whole team.”
Models wearing Lucy's creations at the Fashanne Awards showImproving the sustainability of the process of designing and manufacturing was a key factor of all entries from the University, as Devabrata explains.
“All the students’ collections are strongly based on Textiles 2030 sustainability approach. All the students make sure that one of the criteria they work to when designing is sustainability, as well as trying to be cutting edge and practical as well.
“Fashion with textiles has a very strong heritage because fashion and textile design have been together for a long time. When we see boundaries being pushed by Lucy and Georgina, we see that Huddersfield can achieve so much. We have cutting edge technologies, good studio space to work with and we have textile department and fashion design expertise.”