WALKING down Conduit Street just off London's famous Oxford Circus, shoppers stop to stare at a window display where pretty flowers light up around a mannequin dressed in a shredded taffeta dress - brightening up an otherwise grey afternoon in the city.

It's the storefront of Ashley Isham's multi-label boutique Acquaint, but also an all-Singaporean installation by the London-based fashion designer and two DesignSingapore scholars - graphic designer David Lee, 27, and interior designer Melisa Chan, 28. It was created for the London Design Festival, which runs concurrently with London Fashion Week.

Titled 'My Garden', with its use of Electroluminescent (EL) technology and origami, it won first prize in the 'Independent or Speciality Store 1-5 Outlet' category of the prestigious Evening Standard Window Display Competition 2008 last week.

"I'm really ecstatic," exclaims Mr Lee. "It's already an honour to work with an established designer like Ashley Isham, and showing in London is brilliant.

Winning here is icing on the cake - an affirmation that Singaporean designers have what it takes to shine on the international platform!"

This win will certainly help pave the way for Asian designers trying to break into one of the toughest creative capitals in the world. Indeed, apart from fashion, the world of design is still very much an Asian-unfriendly one, even though less than 50 per cent of designers showing at The London Design Festival are actually from Britain.

"The festival is very international, with designers from all over the world but if you asked us to name a really outstanding Asian designer, we'd be hard pressed to name one," says the Festival's director Ben Evans. "Unfortunately Asian design has always had a reputation of playing catch up."

However, he did point out that Asian design is on its way, especially with most Asian countries aggressively vying to become the design hub of the region.

"Asian design needs individuals who are internationally educated, who make a name for themselves outside Asia and then return to help make their countries a design hub," he says.

On the fashion front though, the Evening Standard win is an extra bonus for Ashley Isham, considering it comes hot on the heels of one of his most successful fashion runway shows to date. With a front row of celebrities including Jasmine Guinness, Camilla Rutherford and Jade Parfitt and Harry Potter stars Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley) and Katie Leung (Cho Chang), his show-stopping Grecian gowns and evening dresses have experts calling him a rival to Britain's gown maestro Julian Macdonald. But Ashley Isham is not the only Asian designer with good news this fashion week. A number of Indian designers are similarly flying high in London.

Following the success of Indian designer Manish Arora - touted as one of the next big cutting edge designers out there - a solid Indian contingent swept through London, including Anamika Khanna, whose label Ana Mika was also shown at Paris Fashion Week during Spring/Summer '08.

Says a spokesman for Glamour Inc that represents Ana Mika in Singapore and which has been promoting Asian designers for many years: "It's not just about the big names anymore in fashion. Ana Mika is like a private luxury because it's for people who want to wear something that no one else has."

Also in London were designer Rocky S, who has dressed the Pussycat Dolls and Beyonce, and designer couple Falguni and Shane Peacock whose clothes enjoy a 98 per cent sales rate at Harrods. Says Falguni Peacock: "The Western market really appreciates our work, especially the Italians, who love our prints. What we sell in Harrods is what we created for India, and not altered to Western tastes, and still we manage to sell so well."

Ana Mika's press representative Sandy Sharma adds that the rise of Indian design in the West in the last five years was impressive and can be seen by the fact that an Indian contingent of 10-15 Indian labels are heading to Paris Fashion Week with five of them running catwalk shows. He attributes most of the success to the fact that Western silhouettes are now popular in India.

"The Asian designers who succeed are those who understand the Western silhouettes and cater to that without losing their Indian heritage."

The uplifting news is timely given the bleak financial climate, not helped by news of Lehman Brothers' collapse right smack in the middle of the season, dampening an already quiet London Fashion Week.

With British retailers worrying about weak sales figures, news of London's 'it' goth designer Gareth Pugh defecting to Paris and London Fashion Week being cut down from six days to five, doom and gloom was definitely in the air this season. Exhibitors were overheard complaining about how few buyers were out and about, presumably because many were trying to cut costs by making just one trip to the much bigger and popular Paris Fashion Week.

Strangely enough, even as London's popularity seems to wane, Asia's fashion industry is growing. India for example now has three fashion weeks attracting international buyers including big department stores like Harvey Nichols. Which is perhaps why Glamour Inc is bringing a contingent of English designers such as reigning queen of little black dresses Hannah Marshall and Richard Sorger to India Fashion Week in October, further proof that Asia has turned into a formidable power in the fashion industry.

Still, it wasn't all dark skies in London as it remains the place to spot new fashion talent. After all, Gareth Pugh has London to thank for making him the designer he is today.

As such, a bit of sunshine was provided by Topshop New Generation designers including Christopher Kane, Marios Schwab, Roksanda Illincic and Todd Lynn, who impressed the fashion juries with their fresh and unique perspectives.

Christopher Kane's prehistoric inspired clothing using geometric patterns showed signs of his increasing commercial viability without losing his edginess; Marios Schwab, whose Grecian inspired dresses described as "jewellery for the body", definitely shone; Roksanda Illincic showed off the beauty of tulle and romanticism and Todd Lynn's amazing tailoring inspired international fashion writer Suzy Menkes to describe his clothes as "sharp".

Just as London is giving our young design scholars the exposure they need, it remains the platform by which young fashion designers can make their mark, and it will continue to do so for many seasons to come.

This article was first published in The Business Times on Sep 20, 2008.