Meet the finalists from 2006 Fashion Fringe

The big brands may make billions, but fashion is a notoriously hard industry for new young talent to succeed in. That's why, in 2004, Style's Colin McDowell set up Fashion Fringe, a competition aimed at finding viable design talent and breathing life into British fashion. Now an established part of the London Fashion Week, Fashion Fringe has acquired some powerful new friends. Tom Ford is honorary chairman, and this year's judges include the designer Giles Deacon and the creative director of Selfridges, Alannah Weston. The show itself will be held on September 21 in the light-filled space at the top of the ultramodern City Hall building. Previewed here are this year's four finalists. The winner receivesa £100,000 investment, and their collection will be sold at www.yoox.com, which puts the fledgling brand right in the global market.

Creating thriving brands is part of the Fashion Fringe philosophy. Business is booming for the 2004 winners, Basso & Brooke. The publicity generated by their win brought them to the attention of the Italian manufacturing giant Aeffe. The pair, who helped whittle down this year's 274 entrants to a shortlist of four, are reporting sales in excess of £1.25m and have expanded into homeware. The 2004 runner-up, Sinhastanic, also secured backing from Aeffe. Its new collection has been spotted on Keira Knightley and Brittany Murphy, and it's selling out in Harvey Nichols. The lucrative American market has also taken to its sleek tailoring and subtle draping. Last year's winner, Erdem Moralioglu, whose creations have been worn by Claudia Schiffer,is also successfully building up his brand. "I can't believe it's been a year," he says. "I've gone from not being known to having a collection that's sold in Barneys."

GAVIN DOUGLAS (pictured)

His Jamaican roots, urban club culture and black history all blend in Birmingham-born Gavin Douglas's collection."It's based on an exhibition I saw at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery on black Victorians," says the Northampton graduate. "When you are at school, you only learn about the slaves. I did a lot of reading and found out that Queen Victoria had a black goddaughter, and that there were black trapeze artists and street musicians," he says. The Victorian influence can be seen in Douglas's big occasion pieces, with embellished corsets and swagged skirts made from up to 10 metres of silk. "I'm into elegance and extravagance," he says. But there are other influences at work too. His draped trousers trimmed with military buttons wouldn't look out of place on a nightclub dancefloor. Indeed, music is a huge influence. "I like reggae and dancehall," says Douglas, who showed his debut collection at Caribbean Fashion Week in 2004. "Dancehall came from wanting to be free, and it was sexually explicit. I identify with that desire to look sexy, and that raunchiness comes across in my work."

ANTONIO SANTANA

Fashion is in Antonio Santana's blood. His mother was a dressmaker in a small town in Bahia, Brazil. "I grew up around clothes, watching her cut things," he says. Santana displayed design promise early: "When I was 10, I started to design my own shirts and trousers." By 19, he had set up a bespoke design studio in Sao Paulo, but came to Europe in 1996 to further his fashion ambitions. He worked at the couture houses of Bruce Oldfield and Elizabeth Emanuel, and as a pattern-cutter for Issa, Temperley and Ashley Isham. "It feels wonderful to be doing my own thing at last," says Santana, whose strength is undoubtedly his technique, honed since he was a boy. His Fashion Fringe collection, entitled Who Wears the Trousers, twists and manipulates traditional menswear items into feminine pieces. The shoulders of a jersey dress segue seamlessly into a cape that is designed to replicate the top half of a jacket, lapels and all; a mac features the fly and waistband of a man's trousers; and a minidress, cut to look like a vest and shorts, unhooks to transform into a longer frock. Santana's woman is, he says, "in her thirties or forties. She's independent and she appreciates quality".

DAVID WOJTOWYCZ

David Wojtowycz trained in fine art and Antonio Ciutto studied architecture, then completed an MA at St Martins before setting up his own label. When that closed in 2005, the pair decided to collaborate on 67/8 (Six and Seven Eighths), a high-concept fashion label. "We wanted a name that was so unspecific, you couldn't hang an ideology on it," says Wojtowycz. They are not interested in fashion convention. "We don't want to feel trend- or season-based. We want the artistic freedom to regenerate ourselves when we want to." Modern muses, they say, are irrelevant: "We want people to relate to the idea." Which, for Fashion Fringe, is based on a Kaendler Meissen porcelain figure the pair bought in Berlin. "Kaendler was the main modeller for Meissen in the 18th century," says Wojtowycz. "He was so talented that Augustus the Strong became obsessed with his work." All the focus and attention has been lavished on the front of their outfits: "Just as with porcelain, the backs are incidental." They have also played with scale and proportion, creating dramatic, oversized shapes that contrast with soft, fluid dresses.

STEPHEN HARPER

A Middlesex graduate, Stephen Harper, 24, strives for nothing short of perfection. Good taste matters to him, and he defines it as: "Perfectly cut clothes worn properly by people who know what suits them." Jackie O and Audrey Hepburn make the grade, as do modern style icons Tilda Swinton and Charlize Theron. "Confident, empowered and sexy people like that inspire me," Harper says. His main influences come from 1950s and 1960s couture, but, rather than replicate techniques, he adapts them for a modern wardrobe. "I've made a coarse linen jacket backed by silk organza, which gives it structure, but is light as a feather," he says. His mother is also an influence: "She wears a lot of menswear, and there are lots of menswear references in my work." Indeed, his trousers are immaculately tailored. "I like real, simple sophistication," says Harper, who aims to create perfectly judged pieces. He has dubbed his latest invention "pod pants". "They're in between stovepipe trousers and oxford bags," he explains. "They have a slim profile, but are really big. They're tidy baggy." Quite.