Celebrations for the World Environment Day (WED) in Qatar started yesterday with the Eco Fashion Design Contest held at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar (VCUQ).

A total of 40 schools with more than 500 children divided into 175 teams participated in the contest.

The contest was organised by the International Academy for Intercultural Development (IAID) in association with the Friends of Environment Centre (FEC).

It was open to creative fashion people with the purpose of reaching a wider segment of the society and target bigger involvement from the general community.

A panel consisting of four designers from the fashion department at VCUQ judged the contestants based on their concept and design.

The judges were Patricia Duignan, fashion designer; Fahad al-Obaidly, founder and designer of Fumee Fashion Brand and currently the head of Public Relations for VCUQ; Leslie Forehand, junior architect and a designer of Information Visualisation and 3D modelling at VCUQ, and Margarita Zuniga, Industry and Institutional Relations Co-ordinator at the Centre for Research, Design and Entrepreneurship at VCUQ.

After a vigorous consultation, the panellists shortlisted designers, who will be invited to the closing ceremony on June 7 to walk the ramp and present their eco-fashion design creations, and accordingly the winners will be chosen and announced.