A WOODEN gate created by North Yorkshire joiners was one of the surprise stars at London Fashion Week.

The gate created by craftsmen at the Duncombe Sawmill in Helmsley appeared in the 2014 London Stella McCartney Green Carpet Collection. It was dedicated to creating fashion that respects the environment, ensuring zero deforestation, ethical production, carbon reduction and use of organic materials.

The North Yorkshire sawmill was asked to create a gate for the Forest Room display by the Forest Stewardship Council, which all attendees walked through to get to the fashion show. The area was re-created from trees, shrubbery, grasses and wood stumps from Pinewood Studio film sets.

The sawmill creates its gates directly from larch felled from a woodland just outside Helmsley. It cuts larch logs into planks, leaves them to air and treats the wood. The gates are then handmade at the mill using traditional techniques by its joiners.

The Stella McCartney event, on Sunday, September 14, was attended by Samuel L Jackson, Paul McCartney, Rita Ora, Drew Barrymore, Colin Firth, Ellie Goulding, Dakota Johnson and Salma Hayek and editor-in-chief of American Vogue, Anna Wintour.

Emma Woods, owner of the Duncombe Sawmill, said: “We pride ourselves on the quality of our work and the wood we use, which is always sustainable and legally felled.

“Often once we make something it goes to its new owner and we don’t know what happens to it. But this time we can quite confidently say that dozens of celebrities have walked through one of our gates.”