The Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design was initiated in recognition of the role the fashion industry plays in society and diplomacy and the movement of young designers that are both talented and making a difference to society through either sustainable practices or community engagement. The inaugural Award was announced and presented to Richard Quinn in February 2018 when The Queen made Her Majesty’s first visit to London Fashion Week. In 2019, the prestigious Award was presented to Bethany Williams by The Duchess of Cornwall and in 2020 to Rosh Mahtani by Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal. Subsequent recipients have included Priya Ahluwalia (2021), Saul Nash (2022), and Ahluwalia Studio, with the award continuing in honour of Her Majesty following her passing in September 2022.
Each year a designer is selected by the BFC, in collaboration with the Royal Household, to be recognised by the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design, which continues as a permanent tribute to Her Majesty’s enduring support of British fashion. The Award, designed by Angela Kelly, inspired by The Queen Elizabeth rose, has been hand-produced by Lucy Price at Bauhinia Studios and in Birmingham’s famous jewellery quarter.
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In 2025 and into 2026, the award has drawn renewed global attention as the BFC intensifies its focus on sustainability and cultural diversity, aligning with broader shifts reshaping the British fashion industry.
Priya Ahluwalia and the February 2021 Announcement
The Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design February 2021 announcement marked a significant moment for the British fashion calendar, recognising Priya Ahluwalia as that year’s recipient. The announcement came during London Fashion Week February 2021, which was staged as a digital event in response to ongoing global restrictions. Despite the virtual format, the honour carried its full ceremonial weight, reinforcing the award’s status as one of the most distinguished accolades available to an emerging British designer.
Priya Ahluwalia, the British-Nigerian-Indian designer behind her eponymous label, was selected in recognition of her unflinching commitment to sustainable practice and her deeply considered approach to cultural identity within fashion. Her work centres on repurposed materials and archival research, producing collections that function simultaneously as commentary and craft. The British Fashion Council, in collaboration with the Royal Household, identified Ahluwalia as a designer whose practice exemplifies the award’s founding criteria: talent, social responsibility, and meaningful community engagement.
The 2021 announcement reinforced a consistent curatorial vision from the BFC, one that prizes ethical innovation alongside creative excellence. For a global audience watching British fashion navigate an unprecedented period of disruption, the recognition of Ahluwalia sent a deliberate and considered signal about the values the industry intended to carry forward.
The Design and Craftsmanship Behind the Award
The physical award itself is a remarkable object, and understanding its making adds considerable depth to its significance as a cultural artefact. Designed by Angela Kelly, who served as Her Majesty’s Personal Assistant, Senior Dresser, and Curator, the award draws its visual inspiration directly from the Queen Elizabeth rose, a variety developed and named in honour of the monarch. This botanical reference grounds the award in a longstanding tradition of royal symbolism while giving it an organic, feminine elegance entirely appropriate to a fashion context.
Production of the award is divided between two distinguished locations. Lucy Price at Bauhinia Studios handles the hand-finishing work, ensuring that each piece retains the character and individuality that a mass-produced trophy could never achieve. Additional fabrication takes place in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, a district with centuries of metalworking heritage and a reputation for producing some of Britain’s finest decorative objects. The combination of a London-based studio and a historically significant regional craft hub mirrors the award’s broader ambition to celebrate British design in all its geographic and cultural complexity.
Every recipient therefore receives not simply a token of recognition but a hand-crafted object with layered meaning, one that connects royal patronage, horticultural tradition, and artisanal British manufacture into a single cohesive piece.
The Award's Enduring Legacy and Global Relevance
Since the inaugural presentation to Richard Quinn in February 2018, when Queen Elizabeth II made her first ever visit to London Fashion Week, the award has grown into a defining fixture of the British fashion calendar and a closely watched indicator of the industry’s evolving priorities. Each recipient, from Bethany Williams’s social enterprise model to Rosh Mahtani’s ethical jewellery practice, and through to Priya Ahluwalia and beyond, has reflected a deliberate editorial stance: British fashion at its most meaningful is not merely aesthetic but purposeful.
Following the passing of Her Majesty in September 2022, the British Fashion Council confirmed that the award would continue as a permanent tribute to Queen Elizabeth II’s enduring patronage of the creative industries. Subsequent recipients, including Saul Nash in 2022, have carried that legacy forward, and the award retains its formal collaboration between the BFC and the Royal Household.
For international fashion audiences, particularly those across North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region, the award functions as a curated introduction to designers whose work merits global attention but who might otherwise remain below the radar of mainstream luxury coverage. In this respect, the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design serves a diplomatic function that Queen Elizabeth II herself would have recognised and valued, using cultural recognition to build bridges across industries, communities, and nations.
