the best of manchester fashion award 

fashion judges

Because we're entirely open as to the kind of work that is entered into the fashion category, we have built a panel of judges with diverse personal and professional interests and experiences. They are:

Flic Everett, the journalist, broadcaster and owner of fashion boutique, Rags to Bitches (winner of our very own  2008 Best of Manchester Fashion award); Wayne Hemingway, former head of label Red or Dead; Claire Lomax, Co-Founder of Flux Magazine; Jessica Lowe, Press & Marketing Manager for Harvey Nichols Manchester; David Mallon, the head of labels Elvis Jesus, Ringspun and high fashion retail outlet, The General Store; Karen Nicol, a couture embroidery and mixed media textile designer and visiting professor at the Royal College of Art; and Alison Welsh, menswear designer, design consultant and Programme Leader and for the BA (Hons) Fashion at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Flic Everett founded and co-owns the Northern Quarter boutique Rags To Bitches (www.ragstobitches.co.uk). Since opening four years ago, the shop has been featured in national media including Elle, Vogue, The Saturday Times (Shop Of The Week) and Stella magazine (50 best Boutiques in Britain.) It's also been featured on Frock Me, The One Show and BBCNews 24. Rags to Bitches has won several awards, including Best Tourism Retailer (2007), Best Female Clothes Shop (Galaxy 2008), The Best Of Manchester Fashion Award (2008) and Drapers Best Womenswear, Highly Commended (2008). Flic is also a journalist and broadcaster, and currently writes on fashion, trends and relationships for The Mirror, the Mail, The Sunday Express, Cosmo, Red, Company and Now! Magazine. She also styles magazine shoots and last year was the Style Consultant for Warrington's Golden Square shopping centre. Flic lives in Manchester.

Wayne Hemingway was born in 1961 in the typical seaside town, Morecambe, and one of his earliest memories is of his mum and Nan dressing him up as Elvis, a Beatle or Tarzan and being paraded up and down Morecambe pier. After spending most of his childhood in Blackburn, Wayne gained a degree in Geography and Town Planning at University College, London. But it was through selling second-hand clothes on Camden Market – to pay for his place in a band – that Wayne realised that he could make money from fashion. With his wife, Gerardine, Hemingway set up Red or Dead, a fashion label that received global acclaim and went on to win the British Fashion Council’s Street Style Designer of the Year Award for an unprecedented three years running. In 1999, having sold Red or Dead in a multi-million pound deal, Wayne and Gerardine set up HemingwayDesign, a company that specialises in affordable and sustainable design. Their highest profile project is The Staiths South Bank, an 800 property mass market housing project on Tyneside for Taylor Wimpey Homes that has since gone on to win numerous industry awards. HemingwayDesign has also developed masterplanning and housing schemes in Manchester, Lothian, the Thames Gateway, Skelmersdale and Whitehaven. Other projects include the highly acclaimed new club for the Institute of Directors on Pall Mall, The 4 Walls range of wallpaper for Graham and Brown, a tile range for British Ceramic Tiles, a range of outdoor furniture exclusive to B&Q and the Roadrunner fold up bike range.

Claire Lomax is a co-founder of Flux Magazine and has worked with some of the world’s biggest names in fashion. She strives to commission the most cutting-edge creative talent for Flux, an irreverent and thought-provoking take on leftfield and popular culture that brings fun, wit and adventure back to art, music, fashion, film and culture. From its Manchester base, Flux distributes 60,000 copies of the magazine, nationally and internationally, on a bi-monthly basis. Flux features a brave and bold mix of well-respected figures and groundbreaking fashion, bands, artists and ideas. Those appearing in Flux include Brain Eno, Alexander McQueen, Scissor Sisters, The Fall, David Shrigley, Franz Ferdinand, AIR, Tracey Emin, Pixies, Liars, Yohji Yamamoto, Squarepusher, Shane Meadows, Bill Drummond, Nick Cave, Jake and Dinos Chapman and Vivienne Westwood.

Jessica Lowe is Press and Marketing Manager for Harvey Nichols in Manchester. She works promoting the garments of some of the world's finest and most successful designers and in the competition will be looking for designs that have the commercial viability to sit alongside them.

David Mallon is behind labels Ringspun and Elvis Jesus, as well as Manchester-based high fashion retail outlet, The General Store.

Karen Nicol is a fashion, interiors and gallery embroidery and mixed media textile designer. Her London based design and production studio has been running for over 20 years, and specialises in Irish, Cornelly, Multihead, beading and hand embroidery. Karen has her own label ranges for Anthropologie NY, Designers Guild and Wild at Heart and her fashion clients include Markus Lupfer, Clements Ribeiro, for whom she produced design concepts and mixed media and embroidered fashion pieces for 15 collections over 10 years; Marc Jacobs; Chloe, John Rocha, Julien MacDonald, for whom she produced embroidered fashion couture pieces for 9 collections; Betty Jackson; Bruce Oldfield; Givenchy; Chanel Couture; and Mathew Williamson, for whom Karen worked on 15 collections. Karen is a Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Art.

Alison Welsh is Programme Leader and third year tutor for BA (Hons) Fashion at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has been a menswear designer and consultant for over 25 years with clients including Levis and Nike. Alison previously worked as a designer at Design Intelligence, a fashion forecasting company in Covent Garden, before setting up IN.D.EX, a similar company based in Wapping, London. She is a trustee of Graduate Fashion Week. Alison’s recent practice has included textile pieces that have been exhibited internationally. She is currently working on developing garments and textiles in India, tackling issues regarding sustainability and natural organic dying, combining contemporary British fashion with traditional Indian garments.