Walsall fashion designer Luke Roper wins top award

Dec 21 2010 by Diane Parkes, Birmingham Mail

WALSALL fashion designer Luke Roper has taken a top industry prize in the year his company celebrates its tenth birthday.

The former Shire Oak School pupil saw his menswear brand Luke win the Young Fashion Brand of the Year 2010 at the Drapers Awards.

And while the 33-year-old creator, whose design studio is in Aldridge, is pleased to receive the award he is certainly not sitting on his laurels as 2010 and 2011 look to be big years for the company.

Luke, who was first introduced to design by his dressmaker mum, studied fashion at Walsall College before taking a menswear degree at Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design in London.

Graduating in 2000, he immediately launched his own clothing range and has seen the company go from strength to strength over the past decade.

Winning the prestigious award, in which Luke was pitted against fashion heavyweights such as Diesel, Fred Perry and Firetrap, is a recognition of that success.

“It is the icing on the cake for ten years of hard labour,” he says. “It means a lot to us but it is not the ultimate, in many ways it marks a start point from which we can continue to go forward.”

And Luke is certainly aiming to take his company forward into the next decade. For a start off he has just branched out to create designs for women.

And next year could be a big step for Luke as he aims to open his first standalone store in Birmingham.

“I am looking at a couple of options but it is very important that we get the right location,” he says. “There are advantages to being in a shopping centre such as Bullring because of the footfall but I would also hope that it could be a destination shop if we chose not to site it in a shopping centre.”

Luke has always been loyal to his roots.

“I was in London for more than five years and in all that time I only spent a few weekends there, I always came back here,” he says. “We have used iconic Birmingham buildings such as the Rotunda and Bullring in our promotions and it has always been fundamental to us that we are a Birmingham and Black Country brand.”

And with the UK market now firmly established, Luke is looking further afield.