FORMER footballer Kevin Keegan’s famous 1980s perm is back in fashion- adorning a pair of silk shorts that are helping to a get a North-East fashion graduate noticed.

Victoria Sowerby, from Spennymoor, County Durham, impressed some of the industry’s most influential names with a range of menswear to win an international competition.

The 24-year-old was one of just ten young designers selected from thousands of entrants in The Future Of Fashion Young Designers Competition ran by Arts Thread, a graduate platform that seeks and nurtures outstanding creative talent.

By winning she gets to showcase her work at the Who's Next fashion show and trade fair in Paris next month in a bid to launch her career.

She said: “I was a bit shocked when I found out I’d been selected, it is really good exposure and Paris will be an opportunity for networking which will hopefully lead to a job.”

She was particularly pleased to learn that her collection caught the eye of Dean Mayo Davies, editor of the magazine Dazed and Confused which she has read since attending Durham High School for Girls.

Miss Sowerby’s winning tongue-in-cheek men’s sportswear range was inspired by her interests and North-East upbringing including 1990s youth culture, football and music.

It features unconventional fabrics such as football tops made of devored velvet and astro turf and reflects her passion for print with colourful patterns created from photographs of Kevin Keegan, football crowds and grass.

She created the pieces while studying at London’s Central Saint Martin’s College of Arts and Design.

While at the university- whose alumni includes Stella McCartney, John Galliano and Bruce Oldfield, who like Miss Sowerby was brought up in Spennymoor- she also spent a year working in the industry.

She completed a three month internship in New York with Diane von Furstenberg, creator of the iconic wrap dress, and spent six months in Copenhagen working alongside fashion designer, musician and artist Henrik Vibskov.

She said: “I loved New York and appreciated the opportunity and learnt a lot but it was Copenhagen I loved, it was really chilled out and Henrik Vibskov is the coolest man I have ever met.”

Since returning from London to the family home in Whitworth Close, Spennymoor, she has been working for parents Paul and Julie Sowerby, who own The Crusty Loaf Bakery, and saving up for a return to the capital.