A SOLVA man with a passion for fashion has been named one of this year's top up and coming design graduates by fashion and beauty magazine, Hunger.

Former Ysgol Croesgoch and Dewi Sant pupil Jordan Charles, 24, graduated from the London College of Fashion this summer. His course saw him spend a year at Vivienne Westwood.

He met the great lady on his first day on the design floor when she pinched his breakfast croissant. Jordan so impressed her during his time at the fashion house that she secured him a paid internship for the year and entrusted him with key elements of her Paris Fashion Week show.

"She is lovely but scary," he said of the grand dame of British fashion. "She had loads of experience and she knows so much. She's constantly teaching you something, even if the way she does it is a bit harsh sometimes. I'd love to go back and work for her."

At last year's Paris Fashion Week Jordan travelled from London to Paris with the last of the catwalk pieces. He spent a sleepless night before the show dressing the models and then on the actual day was in charge of a team dressing and styling the models.

He ended his Paris experience by attending the show's after party where he found himself dancing with Pamela Anderson and Vivienne Westwood's husband in a Parisian nightclub.

For the London catwalk shows he made willow crowns and plastic bottle flip flops which were sported on the catwalk as well as heading up a team of around 100 interns backstage and making sure the styling was spot on.

Jordan's graduate collection was based on Marcel Duchamp's 1917 sculpture, Fountain, a porcelain urinal rotated 90 degrees.

He created two collections; a hand in and a concept collection both using the shapes of the iconic sculpture. His hand in collection featured plenty of cheeky touches including Barbie fabric, lining printed with the tattoo he has on his bottom and mugshots of himself.

The hand-in collection was made entirely of urinal shaped pieces of fabric draped in different ways to create silhouettes and structures.

This caught the eye of Hunger's fashion director Kim Howells who said:

"The way this collection has been designed to fit the body is incredible, it's a puzzle in pieces but the most beautiful transformation when put together."

This term Jordan starts his masters at London's fashion Mecca, Central St Martins after a gruelling interview process against students from around the world.

"I just burst out crying on the train when I got the e-mail to say I'd got in," he said. "Just being in the same place where all these top designers have been, as well as some of my favourite designers."

Jordan hopes his story will inspire other Pembrokeshire youngsters into following their dreams.

"Art is a career path and it's a good one," he said. "I'm doing it, I'm loving it and want to keep doing it for a long time."