Sarah Omoyeni Ajayi won prestigious national award during event that saw multiple successes for Manchester Fashion Institute

Manchester Met student, Sarah Omoyeni Ajayi, has won the highest award at Graduate Fashion Week 2025 for her impactful designs based on the market women of West Africa. 

Graduate Fashion Week is the largest showcase of student fashion in the world. Each year, more than 3500 fashion graduates take part to present the best of their work from over 26 fashion disciplines. 

Multiple graduates from Manchester Fashion Institute were awarded for their work, including the Gold Award winner, Sarah Omoyeni Ajayi.

Ajayi said: “For my designs, I took inspiration from the women in West Africa, especially the market women. Coming from a family that has a lot of market women, I really wanted to honour them. Many people don’t see them as the fashion icons they are.

“I also wanted to capture the grace with which they balance goods on their heads. Just being able to translate that into clothing was an amazing experience. You can see the theme of this in the designs. The inspiration for the silhouette was taken from the Bolga basket from Ghana.”

Ajayi also won The Face Excellence prize and was commended for the GFW Manchester Fashion Institute Catwalk Presentation. GFW is regarded as representing the future of fashion talent and is packed with leading names from the fashion and retail industry. 

The first one in her family to go into fashion as a career, Ajayi first appeased her family’s worries by getting a degree in microbiology. Now after this success, she is eager to gain industry experience and start her own brand one day.

She said: “A valuable skill I gained at Manchester Met is technical know-how. It’s not enough to just come up with ideas, you must deeply research and understand how to bring them to life. That’s what transforms a concept into something truly spectacular.”

Other successes of the event included the double winner and finalist, Jasmine Kelly, who impressed the judges with her digital designs, and winner of the New Business Award, Lucy Harrington-Rutterford. 

Manchester Met graduates also won awards associated with ASOS and IDA Sports and were shortlisted for a total of 17 awards.

Head of Manchester Fashion Institute Professor Liz Barnes said: “I am overjoyed that the hard-work and talent of our graduates from the full breadth of fashion courses offered at Manchester Metropolitan University has been rewarded by an incredibly successful event! Congratulations to the winners, everyone who was finalised or shortlisted for an award, and for those who had their collections showcased.”.