A fashion student has been handed a prestigious accolade after self-publishing an innovative magazine.

Jamie Windust, from Dorchester, was handed the ASOS ‘Future Talent Communications Award’ at Graduate Fashion Week in London earlier this month.

Jamie received the award for their publication, FRUITCAKE, a magazine which aims to give ‘LGBTQIA+ people the representation and authenticity that they deserve.’

Jamie, who now lives in east London, identifies as gender non-binary and uses the preferred pronouns they or their.

“There is currently a lot written about LGBTQIA+ people in the media, but there’s a huge amount of bias and a huge wave of information that isn’t necessarily true. They tell our stories for us – there is a lot written about us but not by us,” Jamie said.

The award criteria stipulates the winning submission must show a ‘well-executed and professionally presented portfolio that demonstrates individual creative identity.’

The magazine was a project Jamie had always wanted to pursue, but they said it was undertaking a final project at university that made it a reality.

“I think it’s incredibly important things like this exist. For many trans or non binary people, just living life on the street is a political act. When I was younger I remember having that moment when I thought, how am I going to live a full life? So for others to see there are people out there, doing just that and thriving they can have that moment of realisation in themselves,” Jamie said.

Jamie, who has just finished studying fashion management and marketing at the University for the Creative Arts in Epsom, said the tagline for the magazine was honest, real and authentic representation.

Jamie said although the magazine aimed to be a fun and creative publication, it also presented hard-hitting topics and created a forum for discussion.

“There are articles which discuss sex in correlation with politics and religion and celebrate gender diversity. 99 per cent of the articles were collated by me asking on social media for people to submit content,” they said.

Jamie added there was a careful selection process to decide which articles made the final cut to ensure a diverse range of voices were included and as many people as possible were represented.

The magazines are only available in print as Jamie wanted to ‘create something really special’ that could be kept and cherished.

As well as taking home the prize, Jamie was handed £3,000 to kick-start their career.

They said: “As an LGBTQIA+ project there was part of me that didn’t think it would win. It’s great the judges have looked at it and said thought this is worthy.”

“I’m really excited about the next issue. The first issue was a trial run and now I’m in a good position to be more hands on and really plan the creative direction.”

Jamie hopes to donate 20 per cent of any profits from the magazine to fund a new community centre for LGBTQIA+ people in London.