THE winner of the East Anglian Daily Times Fashion and Textiles Designer of 2006 has been announced.

THE winner of the East Anglian Daily Times Fashion and Textiles Designer of 2006 has been announced.

Hundreds of text votes were received during the first weeks of June and the winner is Jenny Hitchins from Maldon in Essex. Runners up were Stephanie Hoyle in second place and Mark Brightmore in third.

Eleven young fashion students, all from the Colchester Institute, took part in the two-week competition run in the East Anglia Daily Times and it was down to readers to vote for their favourite designer.

“I really didn't expect to win,” said a surprised Jenny. I'm really pleased as there was quite a lot of competition.”

The 22-year-old hadn't rallied round getting family members to vote as she wasn't sure when the article was being published. “Having strangers voting for me means a lot,” said Jenny.

Jenny created a range of six outfits for her autumn/winter 07 women's wear collection, using fabrics such as coloured leathers, fur trim, buckles and a range of heavy man-made textiles to create a luxurious feel.

Jenny took her love of everything equestrian and brought it bang up-to-date, using detailing such as using horse's snuffles, belts and straps to transformed basic trousers into equestrian style chaps, as seen here.

She also used historical equestrian wear in her collection with a mixture of breeches and jodhpurs.

“Buckles and straps were used to make the garments look different,” she said.

Looking to the future, Jenny hopes to tie in travel with her career and aims to make more commercial contacts.

“I'd really like to keep working with leather,” said Jenny, who ideally wants to end up designing for a large company such as Karen Millen.