Tuesday report

Tuesday is a really busy day at GFW. As well as judges attending shows to decide who will feature in Wednesday's Gala and be given the chance to receive one of the many awards on offer, today students nominated for non-catwalk-collections are seen by the panel. The following are up for grabs: Journalism Award, Creative Marketing Award, Strategic Marketing Award, Jon Adam Fashion Portfolio Award, Mulberry Accessories Award, Media & Design Award, Dalziel & Pow Stand Design Award

Ming Lei Liu - DMU

Heena Patel - DMU

The SDC Colour & Textiles Award and the Boris Trambusti Fashion Imagery Award. Each winner receives a cash prize for themselves and their university.

This year, there is for the first time two £20,000 awards, one menswear, one womenswear - In addition we have the Zandra Rhodes Catwalk Textiles Award and Visionary Knitwear Award. Neither the London College of Fashion and Central Saint Martins are eligible for The River Island Gold Awards because both institutions show the week before GFW.

We started the day at De Monfort University and were blown away. The quality, consistency and individuality on display was amazing. Pounding music set a fast pace and so many of the collections were impressive. De Monfort has reputable shoe design and body contour degrees. Their fashion debut today was triumphant. On-trend colours, great accessories and styling.

Waheed Alli and June Sarpong at the De Montfort University stand.

Gabriela and David in the press office.

The people that fed us!

Chris Moore and partner at work

Anwen Jenkins' womenswear inspired by vintage menswear is wonderful and plays with proportion. Big trousers contrasted with fitted shirts and several variations on the waistcoat theme. A simple navy/white colour palette added impact and the collection was perfectly finished off with old fashioned cameras.

Heena Patel's bold use of colour and contrasting patterns was original and fun. Fat spotted skirts, juxtaposed with striped shirts, metallic panels and checks. The pieces worked together to create an optical illusion in electrifying colours.

The menswear was also very strong: Connie Ho's playful take on tailoring includes a knock out pleated frock coat and Claire Phillips' all-white collection features oversized shirts, ultra long pockets on slim-line trousers, trompe l'oeil print which punctuated perfectly throughout and braces with button details.

At Somerset Lilli Rose Wickes accessorised her collection with fantastic newspaper shoes, Rachel Hines' collection features a fun animal print which worked really well in her hoody dress, while Rebecca Sherwood explored delicate papery fabrics in origami-inspired dresses.

Stand out collection though had to be the upfront and brutally on-trend womenswear from Victoria Harley. Dresses and jackets made from photographic slides (sounds dodgy, looks amazing), chain dresses that harked back to the metal blinds that used to adorn the doorways of old British betting shops, and tape cassette prints. Loved it all.

Taking time out to check out some stands today we came across a great designer/ illustrator Suzie Winsor whose unbleached cotton bags with beard illustrations impressed us along with her homage to beards magazine. Laura Buckley's True line of lingerie was beautifully exhibited complete with her nifty knickers in a purse design. Rosie Willet has designed a beautiful collection of homewares, which although designed for treehouse dwellers (!), could definitely easily sell to ordinary house/flat-living folk. Based on a beautiful owl illustrations, her cups have intricate suede warmers, plates and pillows.

Stephanie Tsang from Northampton university has created a series of utility garments which convert into furniture - a jacket becomes a beanbag cover, a dress a shelf - all very well thought out and quite striking. It was great to see the demonstrations in her portfolio as at the catwalk show although the outfits were compelling, you didn't get to see how the transformed into functional objects.

We caught up with David Reeson, the man behind Asian Dreams who is based at the Museum of Fashion and Textiles in Bermondsey. David is a staunch supporter of new designers and a couple of years ago helped Sonal Patel, a fantastic designer from Westminster who won Alternative Fashion Week and was featured in an fuk Moblog supported by Sony Ericsson. We followed her progress over three months, organised a photo shoot for her and helped her get advice from industry professionals. Like us, David has not heard from Sonal but we are united in belief that she's a very talented designer (if anyone reading this knows Sonal, please ask her to get in touch). Our chat with David centred around the huge changes at the Museum of Fashion & Textiles - new ownership, new shop and cafe and new exhibitions all in the pipeline.

Terry Mansfield has been the chairman of Graduate Fashion Week for three years. He kindly took the time to talk to us about his role and his decision to invite Victoria Beckham to be one of this year's judges. Check him out in our video report.