The Barbie army

Fuchsia-clad "guerrilla Barbies" staging an armed takeover in Battersea Park? It can only mean one thing - Graduate Fashion Week has landed. Now celebrating its 13th year, the fashion showcase which unites 30 of the UK's most prestigious fashion colleges - approximately 1,200 students - for a week of 18 shows and portfolio displays has become a fixture to rival London Fashion Week for talent and innovation.

Sponsored by high street giant Topshop for the fourth year running, Graduate Fashion Week is where the high street and fashion houses look to recruit the latest up-and-coming designers. Over half the team at Giorgio Armani are British trained, with that figure going up to almost three-quarters at cool Parisian fashion house Chloe. Even American Vogue's fashion doyenne Anna Wintour is in no doubt about our winning approach to fashion education. "I would say that British-trained designers are the best in the world."

This year's students are as strong as ever if the opening day was anything to go by. Westminster sent out some of the most memorable collections of the day with the creative director of Burberry, Christopher Bailey - an ex-Westminster student - in the front row.

Barbie fan Alice Casseldine proved that pink can be powerful with her "glamourflaged" revolutionary look that included gun-print mini skirts, candy pink berets and deadly stilettos - all accessorised with a sprayed-pink, sub machine gun. How chic.

Fellow student Donna Jennings mixed slashermovie Halloween masks with black baby-doll dresses. Just the thing for a Marilyn Manson gig.

Other stand-out collections included Sarah Hartman's gilded cobweb knits and chiffon dresses - doused with water for extra cling - Katie Newham's S&M inspired leather harnesses, suspenders and thigh grazing boots, and Helen Kypri's madcap Sixties-inspired look.