Lovely article from Manchester Confidential…

Best of Manchester Fashion Awards 2010

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2010 long list announced!

The Best of Manchester Fashion Awards 2010 are most excited to announce the long list of nominees for the Small Independent Retailer/Designer and New Designer categories. These are…

Small Independent Retailer/Designer:

A Few Fine Things

American Graffiti

Babycakes

CoCu

James Darby

Frank Rostron

The General Store

Hervia Bazaar

Junk Shop

The Lucile Boutique

Me & Yu

Nicholas Jones Tailoring

Oi Polloi

Pop Boutique

Poshu

Ran

Renegade Marmalade

Retro Rehab

Rockers

Thomas Street Post Office

Thunder Egg

Tib Street Fashion Market

Vintage Threads

New Designer:

Penny Armstrong

Hannah Calvert

Alex Dubell

Danielle Ferguson

Micheal Bolton Heaton

Chloe Lennox

Samuel Mason

Emma Murphy

Kirsty Payne

Charlotte Taylor

Rebecca Thomson

Richard Thorner

Huge congratulations to all nominees! The judges now face the unenviable task of deciding who will make it to the short list. More details coming soon, so do keep checking back for updates!

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IT’S TIME TO PUT THE SPOTLIGHT ON THE NEXT WAVE OF MANCHESTER’S PIONEERING CREATIVES… IT’S TIME FOR THE BEST OF MANCHESTER FASHION AWARDS 2010!

The Best of Manchester Awards were originally created by Urbis, Manchester’s centre of popular culture, to support the city’s creative community across art, music and fashion.

Each year, the awards spotlight the work of the most outstanding creative professionals working in Manchester today. Keen to acknowledge and encourage flourishing new talent or benefiting those in the business for years; the awards believe in raising the profile for local creative individuals and industries – providing the kind of contacts and professional development that can really kick-start glittering careers.

Now run as an Urbis legacy project, with the support of CityCo, Manchester’s city centre management company, the awards are continuing to encourage and support the next generation of creatives and businesses. A panel of leading experts from the fashion industry will be judging and electing nominees, the winners of which will be announced at the Awards Ceremony in October 2010!

Why Fashion for 2010?

This year sees the launch of the ‘Manchester Heart of Fashion’ campaign and the Manchester Style Guide, an exciting new publication featuring everything you could ever need to know about Manchester’s contribution to fashion – from its best kept secrets in retail, to its universities’ award winning fashion degrees. From the high street to the independent boutique, Manchester has it all! So for 2010, The Best of Manchester Awards is – as ever – taking an innovative approach to promoting the creative hub of the city. This year the Awards are placing prime focus on Manchester’s burgeoning fashion creatives and industries, and comprising of three inspiring NEW categories…

New Designer Award

Every year we at BOMA are consistently overwhelmed with astonishingly strong submissions from the latest crop of talented young fashion graduates from our local universities, University of Salford and Manchester School of Art. These new designers are highly respected by industry experts, and always make a huge impression at the much coveted Graduate Fashion Week. So, for 2010, placing all focus upon the best of Manchester’s Fashion, we saw it fit to honour the freshest faces in fashion of this city with their own dedicated category. The New Designer Award will therefore solely acknowledge 2010’s exciting graduate talent… and the names to look out for!

BOMA are honoured to announce that the judging panel of the New Designer category will include:

Peter Saville (Designer and Creative Director); Claire Lomax (Flux Magazine); Caroline Rush (CEO British Fashion Council); Oscar Pinto Hervia (Hervia Bazaar & Hervia Ltd.); David Mallon (Ringspun & Elvis Jesus).

Small Independent Retailer/Designer Award

We all know our high street brands and chains, now it’s time to recognise the independent retail sector of Manchester too! This award acknowledges smaller businesses and individual designers and their invaluable contribution to the economic, cultural and artistic landscape of the city; providing shoppers with an alternative to the high street chain stores and ensuring the consumer experience is always unique and distinct. The Best of Manchester Fashion Awards is a perfect opportunity to honour these small retail and designer stalwarts, for wearing their independence proudly on their sleeves in 2010 and keeping Manchester’s style as original as ever!

BOMA are honoured to announce that the judging panel of the Small Independent Retailer/Designer category will include:

Peter Saville (Designer and Creative Director); Dolly Jones (VOGUE.com); Jessica Lowe (Harvey Nichols); Rob Warner (Umbro); Helen Tither (Manchester Evening News).

Lifetime Achievement in Fashion Award

To reflect Manchester’s past impact and continuingly huge, inimitable influence upon fashion, this category will graciously acknowledge the career of a pioneering Manchester designer of the judges’ choosing… all will be revealed at the Awards Ceremony!

In keeping with the fresh new theme of the awards this year, the nominating process has also had an update. Rather than a call for submissions, as in previous years, the 2010 Awards will be conducted on a nominal basis, with local universities putting their most promising students and graduates forward for nomination for the New Designer Award. For the Small Independent Retailer/Designer Award, some of the UK’s most esteemed fashion directors, experts and stylists have been busy selecting the finest and most innovative independent retailers and designers this city has to offer. The judges are certainly being spoilt for choice!

The prizes:

The Best of Manchester Fashion Awards provide a unique and limitless wealth of opportunity for winning nominees to raise their profile as prominent young designers, or independent businesses. Not only will the winners gain an immeasurable accolade for their CV and brand, their collection will also be seen by a panel of leading industry experts, and they will receive mentoring from some of the most highly regarded professionals working in the fashion business today! A prize fund of £2,000 will also be awarded to the winner of each category.

Previous winners and nominees have included Nabil El Nayal, MMU fashion graduate, who has since been tipped as the ‘next face of British womenswear’ with Vogue declaring his work as ‘beautiful and bold’; independent boutique Junk Shop, who recently launched a new collection for Topshop; and Holly Russell, whose graduate collection was championed by Nicola Formichetti, and ensuing designs worn by Lady Gaga!

Who knows who’ll be next to set Manchester’s fashion world alight…? The Best of Manchester Fashion Awards 2010 have arrived to find out!

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