Burnham-On-Sea fashion student reaches final three on Sky One TV show

This was the moment when Burnham-On-Sea fashion student Matthew Bowkett discovered he’d won a place in the grand final of Sky One’s Project Catwalk TV show.

The 21-year-old from Stoddens Road pulled off an amazing turnaround in the penultimate episode of the series on Thursday night (March 9th) to beat the other contestants vying for a place in next week’s grand final at London Fashion Week.

Matthew had struggled throughout the epsiode, but came through with flying colours by designing a ‘red carpet’ dress for model Liz Hurley that she said was “stunning.”

The contestants had 16 hours to design a dress for Liz Hurley to be designed for looks rather than comfort. “It’s not about comfort, it’s about looking fabulous,” said Mrs Hurley.

Mentor Ben de Lisi said Matthew had made a bad decision in choosing a blue fabric for his design, but the Burnham student ignored his advice and ploughed on.

But when Liz Hurley’s personal stylist visited Matthew and also hinted that the design would not suit her boss, he began to re-think.

With just four hours to the start of the catwalk show, Matthew radically changed his design and removed the blue fabric, relying on a pink overall design instead.

Rushing to complete the dress in time, Matthew was then faced with more pressure when his model turned up 30 minutes late – leaving him with just minutes to finish the design before the catwalk display.

But it didn’t appear to have hurt his chances of winning. Liz Hurley and the other judges liked his design – and Matthew won the episode. He now faces Kirsty and Debbie in next week’s grand final.

“It was a dream come true,” said Matthew. “I couldn’t believe I had done it! Now all of a sudden I’ll be showing my designs at London Fashion Week.”

Burnham-On-Sea.com first reported in January how Matt is bidding for fashion stardom by appearing as a contestant on the TV series.

Project Catwalk gives young fashion designers the chance of a lifetime to have their collection shown at the 2006 London Fashion Week. With £20,000 and a feature in Elle magazine also up for grabs, the competition is intense.

Matthew also received news during this week’s episode that Barbour is putting one of his designs into production.

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