A GRADUATE from Arts University Bournemouth has had his debut collection exhibited at London Fashion Week.

Janislav Solovyov moved to Bournemouth from Estonia in 2016 to study for his degree in fashion.

His collection was developed with his Estonian heritage in mind and fuses together traditional elements of folk dress and contemporary dance.

The garments use 100 per cent natural fabrics and were displayed in the #PositiveFashion Designers Exhibition at 180 The Strand in London’s Covent Garden.

With his focus on sustainable fashion, Janislav has been using a digital pattern cutting software called Lectra, minimising waste through 3D modelling.

The designer said: “I’m mostly focussed on digital fashion and all of my pattern cutting and prints are done digitally using Lectra, because I’ve found that nowadays there’s sustainable technology which we can use to save paper and fabric.”

He added: “For me, it was a great three years at AUB, which I spent with an amazing team which supported and helped me.

"I feel a great deal of gratitude to them and the job that they do.”

Janislav has had a successful year as he was selected as one of the top graduate fashion designers at Graduate Fashion Week 2019 and also as a finalist of the British Fashion Council Givenchy Competition.

Elena Crehan, Senior Lecturer in Fashion at AUB, said: “The exhibition is all about promoting sustainability, and because Janislav used the Lectra software to do his pattern cutting, it’s a really sustainable process that cuts out waste produced in prototyping.

“It’s essential that students are thinking about sustainability in their process – fashion has a had huge impact on the environment and is traditionally seen as one of the least sustainable industries, but there’s now a lot of focus on reusing things, sustainable fabrics, and creating fashion in a sustainable way.”

During the week, big names in the fashion industry such as designers Victoria Beckham and Alexa Chung and supermodels Irina Shayk and Kendall Jenner made appearances at the event.

AUB’s graduates have excelled in their careers and have gone on to work with large fashion brands such as Burberry, Missoni and Ralph Lauren.