A fashion graduate who set up her own design studio in Brynmawr specialising in bridal and evening wear, has been named as one of Gwent's entrepreneurs of the year.

Julie Thomas set up her fashion house six months ago with the help of her father who invested his redundancy money from the Ebbw Vale steelworks in the business. Recently she beat off fierce competition to finish third and win a prize of £250 in the local finals of a Young Entrepreneur of the Year competition.

"It's very exciting to win this prize," said 24-year-old Julie, who lives in Tredegar. "I started out working for someone else but I wanted to set up in business on my own - even though I hadn't a penny in my pocket or any idea how to run a company."

"I owe a lot of my success to the tutors on the fashion course at the university in Newport.

If they hadn't passed on their knowledge to me I wouldn't have been able to create the designs that I come up with today."