McQueen collection wins design award

Alexander McQueen has posthumously won a top design award for his spring and summer 2010 fashion collection.

The collection, which suggested a "futuristic underwater world", was streamed from a fashion show in Paris live on the internet to 40 million viewers.

The shortlist for Brit Insurance Design of the Year was drawn up before McQueen's death last month, at the age of 40.

Gossip singer Beth Ditto was also in the running in the fashion category for her collection for plus-size store Evans.

Paula Reed, judge and style director of Grazia magazine described McQueen, who was found dead at his luxury London home, as a "clear winner".

She said: "The entire jury wanted to be clear that the choice was not made for any sentimental reason.

"The video presentation of McQueen's last show is one of the most compelling pieces in the exhibition.

"It works on so many levels. The designer had been working for years on developing fabrics that could blend the hard into soft and had pretty much come close to achieving that in this collection."

She continued: "The impressiveness simply compounds the enormity of his loss."

Industry experts nominated international designs across seven categories -transport, fashion, product, graphics, furniture, interactive and architecture.

An overall winner from the categories will be announced on March 16.

The winning entries and shortlisted designs are displayed at the Design Museum in London until June 6.

The seven Brit Insurance category winners are:

* Brit Insurance Architecture Award 2010: Monterrey Housing, Mexico. By Elemental. Chile.

* Brit Insurance Fashion Award 2010: Alexander McQueen spring/summer '10 and spring/summer catwalk presentation. UK

* Brit Insurance Furniture Award 2010: Grassworks. By Jair Straschnow. Netherlands.

* Brit Insurance Graphic Award 2010: The Newspaper Club. By Ben Terrett, Russell Davies and Tom Taylor. UK

* Brit Insurance Interactive Award 2010: The EyeWriter. By members of Free Art and Technology, OpenFrameworks, Graffiti Research Lab, The Ebeling Group and Tony Quan. US

* Brit Insurance Product Award 2010: Folding Plug. By Min-Kyu Choi.UK

* Brit Insurance Transport Award 2010: E430 Electric Aircraft. By Yuneec International. China.