Online Fashion Week

"Still Shaking"

Updated Monday December 12, 9.21am: Design a Dress winner Aina Brence is still in shock about her competition win. The London's L'Atelier de Sumarie student based her Lady Like creation on the style of Audrey Hepburn - keeping in mind the Claire Goldsmith quote: "Her look is timeless because it's simple; fuss goes out of fashion". We caught up with the designer today to hear about the design process; her winning moment; and her hopes for the future. SEE THE 10 FINALISTS HERE Have you ever made a dress from paper before? When I used to study sewing and dressmaking in college inLatvia and we had to make some small scale paper garments (just basic ones) so we could understand how all patterns come together before cutting it out of actual material. What were the challenges? I would say one of the challenges were working with the tissue paper and trying to get it to fit the mannequin by still looking nice as it is so fragile and tears easily. Also there were hours of gluing those thin paper strips to the dress. Did the creation work first time, or did it need some trial and error? I was actually quite lucky and it happened to work the first time. It just had to work the first time as I had no time left to remake it. What did you think when you got in to the top 10? Did you know so many people had been voting for you? I was really excited when I found out that I was in the top 10. I thought that even if I didn't win it is still amazing to see your design on VOGUE.COM. I really wanted to give my best and at least get into the top 10 therefore I think that during those seven days of voting I asked every person possible to vote for my design if they liked it, not just once but several times. They probably couldn't stand me by the end of it. How did you feel when you learned you'd won? I was at work at the time when I got the email, I think I only read the first line which said that I'm the winner and I just stood up and screamed "Oh my God I just won". So the girls I work with just ran up to me and started hugging me. It was just amazing and I couldn't believe it happened to me, I think my hands were still shaking for the next half an hour but I was really happy. What will you do to celebrate? I think the biggest day of celebration was Friday. My lovely office girls surprised me with some champagne, balloons and a very sweet card. I also had few drinks with my friends to celebrate the amazing occasion. Unfortunately none of my family lives in theUKbut they were so happy and supportive when I announced the good news over the phone. What are your hopes for the future? It's amazing and unbelievable that this has happened to me. I did an internship for Sumarie Couture Swimwear and after having this amazing opportunity to gain experience I must admit that I would like to have my own label. I hope my dream will come true one day but at the moment I would love to have an opportunity to work in the industry and gain much more experience and develop my skills. SEE THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT HERE Updated Friday December 9, 12.00pm: Aina Brence is the winner of our Design A Dress competition, for her dress entitled Lady Like. Brence is currently studying at London's L'Atelier de Sumarie. "This dress was inspired by the effortless grace of all time fashion icon Audrey Hepburn," she says. "It is made out of recycled tissue paper with thin paper strips added to create texture." READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT HERE Updated Thursday December 8, 4.00pm: The shortlist of our Design A Dress competition is finally here. Last month, we asked our Facebook followers to create a dress out of recycled paper and submit a picture of it on the BritishVogue Facebook page - and now we have narrowed the entries down to the ten most voted entries. SEE THE SHORTLIST HERE Judged by Livia Firth, Jocelyn Whipple and Ruth Chapman and her team at MATCHESFASHION.COM, the winner - whose dress will be sold alongside Matches own label - will be announced at midday tomorrow on the Online Fashion Week blog. SEE THE TOP 10 DESIGNS The full shortlist is as follows: Mina Vesović Sherri Colter Aina Brence Danica Tancic Casey Hewson Mimi Albu Marina Guergova Miles Ehan Clare Martin Nivya Raju SEE THE MOST VOTED FOR DRESSES YOU SHOULD SEE: The latest Online Fashion Week action... YOU SHOULD SEE: The chicest green happenings on the Green Style Blog...