A NORTH-EAST fashion student has won a national award for one of her designs.

Emily Carter-Gibson, 18, who studies at Darlington College of Technology, took the top prize of £750 in the UK final of the Can U Cut It? competition.

Forty colleges across the country submitted 60 garments for the final, including the London College of Fashion, which hosted the event.

Fellow student Laura Scaife, 17, from Shildon, County Durham, also made it to the final. Both are studying for a BTEC National Diploma in Fashion and Clothing.

Their tutor, Lynne Waterfall-Brown, said: "I thought it was absolutely brilliant and fantastic for Emily and the college. She really deserved it and worked so very hard.

"It was a skills competition and the judges looked at her patterns, the technical making-up of the garment and the compatibility of the fabrics, which she had dyed and printed herself.

"I think they were impressed because it was so commercially viable."

Emily, who is going on to study fashion and marketing, took inspiration for her outfit from the current renovations of Darlington's Victorian South Park.

"I liked the mix of man-made and natural, the graffiti, the railings and the trees," she said. "It is all being restored at the moment and so it was an excellent source of inspiration."