Each year, Fashion Fringe aims to find an outstanding, young, British-based designer to receive the Fashion Fringe award. Selected from four finalists by our international committee, the winner receives more than £100,000, plus invaluable mentoring, business support, PR and legal advice to create their own fashion company. For the past two years, Tom Ford has chaired the selection committee, and this year, we are proud to welcome Donatella Versace.

Such stellar input pays off. Last month, five Fashion Fringe finalists – Basso & Brooke and Sinha-Stanic from 2004, Erdem and Modernist from 2005 and Gavin Douglas from 2006 – were on the official calendar of London Fashion Week, and all of them now run successful international businesses. And it looks very much as if last year’s winner, Aminaka Wilmont, which showed a highly professional debut collection, will be every bit as successful as its predecessors.

Fashion Fringe has grown since its inception five years ago. We now provide an intensive mentoring month for the four finalists, something that makes Fashion Fringe unique among design initiatives and competitions. Luckily, we can turn to key international figures at all levels of the industry: Christopher Bailey, the creative director of Burberry; Jonathan Akeroyd, the CEO of Alexander McQueen; Gail Sackloff, formerly of Saks Fifth Avenue; and Claudia Croft, the fashion features director of this magazine.

“Fashion Fringe is a wonderful organisation that helps to support and promote young talent in the British fashion industry,” says Ford, the fringe’s second chairman (he followed Rose Marie Bravo, the woman who revolutionised Burberry). Despite his hectic schedule, Ford never let us down. “It has been an honour to serve as chairman for the past two years, and I am sure that Fashion Fringe will continue to uncover and foster new British talent.”

Enterprises such as Fashion Fringe are like Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, relying heavily on the kindness of strangers, or rather, the generosity of supporters. American Express and DHL are now on board – both world-class companies renowned for their expertise in their fields. American Express is greatly respected for the help it gave to Alexander McQueen in the 1990s, while DHL’s logistical support to the fashion industry on an international level is already well known.

Last year, there was another new initiative: our collaboration with the British Council. As part of its New Silk Road scheme, the council provided the four finalists with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel to Asia to learn about local design, culture and crafts and meet like-minded artists. Each of our finalists found a local collaborator, who came to London for the summer, hosted by the British Council, to work on their collections in the run-up to the Fashion Fringe catwalk show. This year, we are planning to expand the British Council’s initiative and our finalists will visit a different part of the world.

None of the aspirations of Fashion Fringe could be achieved without financial backing from our supporters. Some, such as L’Oréal Paris, provide products and a team of high-profile hair and make-up experts for the finalists’ shows. Plus, the mayor of London provides support through the London Development Agency. To have the backing of the capital, a global creative hub, is a matter of pride. Add the Centre for Fashion Enterprise, launched by the London College of Fashion, which provides valuable business advice for our winners in the first, vital, but tentative, years of running their businesses, and you can see that we have forged a strong support network.

Clothes must also be sold, of course, and we are happy to have the support of Net-a-porter.com, which receives more than 1.25m hits per month and ships to 170 countries around the globe. Quite apart from the personal involvement of its founder, Natalie Massenet, who mentors our finalists and winner, this is the sort of exposure that not even a great deal of money could buy.

We have high hopes for the award under the guidance of Versace. Initially, we were afraid to ask. But we did. And she said: “Yes, of course.” Wow. “I am honoured to be joining the committee of Fashion Fringe as its chairwoman. This is an event that I have had great interest in since it began in 2004,” she says of the award. “London has an unbeatable reputation as the originator of unique fashion talent, and it is very exciting for me to be personally involved in discovering and supporting that talent through the Fashion Fringe initiative.”

We are pleased for many reasons, not least Versace’s well-known support for young designers in London. She is the perfect choice and will continue the tradition of commitment that we have already benefited from so much.

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