Fashion, Design and Technology student, Alex Ritchie, has been awarded second prize in the prestigious Stradivarius Fashion Design Competition in collaboration with the British Fashion Council.

Fashion, Design and Technology student, Alex Ritchie, has been awarded second prize in the prestigious Stradivarius Fashion Design Competition in collaboration with the British Fashion Council.

Applicants for the competition were given a project brief of creating a portfolio of designs that reflected Stradivarius’s style and values in a capsule collection that met the trends in the British Fashion Market.

Three Manchester Fashion Institute students, Alex Ritchie, Hollie O’shea and Niamh Clarke from the FDT course, were selected as part of a shortlist of only 10 finalists. For the final stages of the competition, they flew to Barcelona and were interviewed by a judging panel at Stradivarius headquarters.

Senior Lecturer in Fashion, Design and Technology, John Earnshaw, said of the competition: “British Fashion Council competitions are very prestigious. As the shortlisting group is so small, it is hard to get even one student into the final. We are very lucky to have three in the final for this competition, it’s a great achievement.”

The work of final year student, Alex Ritchie, wowed the judges on the panel and she was awarded second prize in the competition and a cash prize of £500.