London fashion students compete to design new uniforms for umi hotels
Students from the University of The Arts, London and the London College of Fashion were recently given a unique opportunity to showcase their design skills within the corporate world. The competition winners have just been announced and their designs will become the new uniform for umi hotels’ staff in Brighton, London and Moscow.
The brief was to design clothing that reflected the corporate values of umi hotels in a timeless, yet contemporary style with an innovative new approach. Essentially, the umi management team were looking for clothing with innate design credentials that staff would take pleasure in wearing.
Steve Lowy, Founder of umi hotels said “The presentations were all very impressive. The ideas really gave us a view of hospitality uniforms in a different light and we will definitely install the ideas from the winners throughout all the umi hotels over the next few months. This continues my belief of giving young people a chance to express themselves creatively and be directly productive in industry.”
The winners, Eliza Herron (20) and Bethany Richard (19), both won £50 Topshop vouchers in addition to the pride of their ideas being incorporated into umi hotels’ staff uniforms this year. Bethany said, “My winning design was the New York coffee shop meets sophisticated Notting Hill hybrid, featuring classic pieces with neutrals and pops of colour. I am very humbled and excited to have won.”
Both girls are looking for fashion internships for summer 2012 and also hope that winning the competition will help them find somewhere to begin their fashion industry careers in 2013 following their graduation.
Eliza said, “It is a great feeling to win and to know that all my hard work had paid off. It will be an experience to put on my resume to make me stand out from someone else applying for the same job as I am in the future.”
Anyone able to offer internships in fashion design/illustration, costuming or womenswear labels should contact the girls directly via ech39@drexel.edu (Eliza) or br94@drexel.edu (Bethany).
![FashionStudentsWinnersMar2011 umi Fashion Design competition winners with Steve Lowy](http://umihotels.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/FashionStudentsWinnersMar2011-300x225.jpg)
umi Fashion Design competition winners with Steve Lowy