“I’ve always wanted to work with social enterprises,” she told us.”That goes back to my childhood because I’ve seen my parents do a lot of charitable work when I was growing up in Pakistan. When Iwas 17, I worked with the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. They actually pioneered microcredit and their founder, Muhammad Yunus, won a Nobel Prize for it. I saw the impact of giving the poorest of the world capital and a dream and a job, and that completely stayed with me for the rest of my life.

I did different things, worked in different corporate jobs but this was a dream of mine. Recently, I was working for Pepsi in marketing and I was doing a good job there and I though ‘Okay, if I can market the best brands in the world, why can’t I market something I’m very close to?’. So then I got onto this journey of discovering brands that are high-end, high fashion and have a social conscience. At the moment, I’m featuring four, all from the developing world – Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa – and they have a very similar social mandate, which is to really empower women in marginalised communities. They teach them skills, to enhance their creative skills. The women can work from home so they’re not tampering with any social norms. They pay them money per piece, which is quite high compared to what they would get if they were to work in a factory, and they also give them a share of profits. More than that, they instil an idea of their self-worth and their creativity and the women feel really empowered. It changes the way men look at them, the way their families interact with them.

“What I want to do with Fashion ComPassion is open more markets and make sure that these brands have a future and more people see them because they truly are works of art. I want these women’s messages to be heard and people to know that they’re really like us – they’re as creative, they’re as smart but they just don’t have a platform and I want to create that for them.”

“All our products are hand-made and it takes about five weeks to make them because they don’t start until we order. It’s completely bespoke. I’m wearing a burqa dress [see left] which is in green. Somebody else ordered it in white so it’ll be manufactured to the lady’s measurements and she can put a different trimming on it if she wants.”

Currently, Fashion ComPassion is selling from their website but they plan to partner up with other charitable organisations and, eventually, with retailers. You can view the full range of products on offer through their website.

“We’ve won the Elle LaunchPad award,” she told us. “We picked up a lot of new stockists off the back of that – some really good independents – and they’ll continue to mentor us going forward. Lorraine [editor of Elle] came by to do a personal order. We’re showing at Paris in a couple of weeks, we’re taking the colection to Japan. We’ve had lots of great press and Harrods are taking the collection this season.

“With the collection being quite young and without having done too much marketing, the clothes seem to be selling themselves in Harrods, which puts us up there with some really big name. It feels like people are starting to learn a bit more about the brand and the demand has picked up.”

We asked her if it felt like she’d reached a point where it felt like she’d begun to achieve what she’d set out to when she founded the label. “I  feel like not all the hard work is done but I feel like I’m now past those initial few years where you just don’t know how it’s going to go. Coming from a finance background as well, having given up all that to start on something totally, totally brand new – it’s a little bit of a relief to get the award and the endorsement and the pat on the back from such great industry names.”

Was the background in finance a benefit in developing the label? “I think it’s really helped. I originally studied architecture which is half design, half maths and now, you’ll see that my collection is quite symmetrical – I like things to add up, you know, straight lines and quite clean, quite methodical in ways.”

Finally, there’s also some good news in Zoe’s personal life. “I got engaged in January and we’re getting married in Majorca in four weeks!” Unsurprisingly, Zoe’s designed her own dress.

We wish Zoe all the best for her nuptials and the ongoing ascent of her label. You can find the new collection at irwinandjordan.com

See below for more photos from backstage during Issa London’s preparations for their catwalk show at London Fashion Week.

“We’re pretty new to it all, been going for about 18 months now,” he told us. “This is our first show. It’s been part-time for a long time and, just recently, full-time.

“We both come from a fine artist’s background so we were both involved in sculpture. I was a fine artist, doing painting, mainly, and illustration, and we kind of met by accident, really. I did an apprenticeship at Foundry, doing large bronze sculpture and restoration and Eliza came in with a small horse sculpture that she wanted cast in bronze. She didn’t know how expensive it was going to be so she was, like ‘Err, how about I get involved in the process and maybe cut the price a bit.’ I was happy to teach her and we started playing around with some ideas.

“We made a few things and someone from the press saw a piece and really loved it, and said ‘Right, I’m putting it in a mag!’ so we decided that we’d better get a company together. We’ve got five stockists already and we sell online but this [Elle Talent LaunchPad] is a big push, a real help.”

We asked him to tell us about how the pieces are created. “It’s all done by us from start to finish – materials, process, pouring, everything. Not being classically-trained jewellers at all, it’s very artistic and quite sculptural. We’re influenced a lot by mythology and we basically enjoy ourselves a lot when we create the pieces and see where that takes us.

“These are a pair of heels – a mermaid and a pirate. We want to do a whole series of romantic lovers of some form and we’re looking to collaborate with a shoe designer.”

We asked Yunus about the large headdress piece (left). “We’ve had fun doing bigger things. We just got this today. We’re really interested in doing larger, architectural pieces. We like to create a piece of artwork that, when it’s not being worn, you can display as a piece of art. It’s sculpture to be worn. This piece all unfolds and changes.”

“This (right) is our first collection, ‘Unsung Heroes’. They’re really raw, really playful, really big kind of statement pieces. We’ve kind of expanded a bit – before it was bronze and silver, and now we’re doing gold with lots of enamel.”

There were plenty of jewellery and accessory designers at the BFC exhibition but Yunus & Eliza stood out with their unique approach. We look forward to hearing more about their process – especially those heels!

Laura was born and grew up in Lithuania. “I’ve been knitting since I was five years old. I studied business and that helps a lot in fashion. Then I studied Fashion Design at St Martins. I graduated in 2009.”

We asked her how this, her second collection differed from the one she showed at AFW. “This collection is a bit more sellable. I still try to keep my signature ethnic style but this time, I wanted to be more futuristic so I’ve used metallic, shiny elements. My inspiration comes from Chinese legends about aliens so it’s a combination of ethnic and futuristic.

“We designers, we’re like journalists – we take a story, we research and translate it to our collection so it’s like the clothes are telling the story. Crocheted ribbons and tassels but metallic, 80% cotton and the rest is metallic. Most of it is hand-knit, with only the finer pieces are factory-made to my patterns.”

We asked what the reaction has been to the new collection. “Surprisingly amazing. As a designer, you never know, you get paranoid shortly before the show about what people are going to say, what the press are going to say but I’m really happy. There’s a been a really good reaction. People like to see traditional knitwear made in new ways.”

Laura’s collection is targeted at 18-25 year old girls and is priced in the £300-700 range. It’s currently sold at Beyond the Valley in London and Debut in New York, and you can see the full collection at lauratheiss.com

“I was a menswear designer initially, working at a very high-end design company in Korea. I decided to come to London purely because there are two very good Masters courses here, at the Royal College of Art and Central St. Martins. I got accepted to the Royal College of Art so that’s where I studied. I then worked as a senior designer at All Saints and Twenty8Twelve, and then I thought ‘I’ll just do my own thing’. So, I started my label and this is my third season. Last season I got chosen for Ones to Watch by Vauxhall Fashion Scout and I secured six very good stockists, and then I won these two awards, which is fantastic!”

We asked Eudon why he switched from menswear to womenswear. “I already did menswear, had a very good experience for four years but I kinda thought, I might just do more experimental things in womenswear – you can do more, explore more design elements but at the same time, because I have a menswear background there are always menswear elements in my design, but translated to womenswear. So, on the hangar rail, it might look very masculine but when you put it on, it’s actually quite sexy and modern and feminine. That’s kind of my handwriting.”

“The colour palette is kind of basic. I started from this blue, kind of workwear, and then there’s just simple white – really basic colours, like camel beige, going into dirty pink. Also a lot of the colour combinations are coming from very utilitarian combinations. It’s basically a workwear palette.

“The label is positioned between contemporary and designer label so the price point is a little less than a designer label but a little more than a contemporary label. My last collection, the heavily detailed pieces, made from pure Italian cotton were going up to £1,200 but the t-shirts start from £70.

We asked Eudon what age group he was aiming the collection at but he explained that he designs with attitude in mind, more than age. “Nowadays it’s really difficult to define age group because it’s more about attitude than a certain age but if I had to define it, it’s probably mid-twenties to mid-thirties. It’s wearable. In a way, it’s very classical but with a twist, a bit edgy.”

Next stop for Eudon is Paris Fashion Week but we’re sure we’ll be seeing more of him in London next season.