TALENTED students took the plaudits at the annual dinner of Huddersfield Textile Society.

President Bill Skidmore welcomed more than 250 guests to the event at the Cedar Court Hotel, Ainley Top, where textile society medals were presented to top performing students from Huddersfield University and the town’s Textile Centre of Excellence.

Zoe Holliday, a graduate of the university’s design department, who now works for a weaving firm in Darwen, Lancashire, received the medal for creativity in design, while Ashley Addy, of Interface FLOR in Shelf, Halifax, was presented with the medal for textile technology for his part-time course at the textile centre.

Louise Barkas, of the university’s design department, who works for a textile firm in Bridlington, won the medal for innovation in design, but was unable to attend the dinner.

Five pupils from Almondbury High School received prizes for their work in fashion and textiles.

Jade Anderson, Louise Chisholm, Paige Kent, Sarah Land and Sabbah Mahmood undertook a project to design fashionable clothes. They were accompanied at the dinner by school assistant head Chris Wilcocks.

To mark the society’s centenary, a picture by local artist Tony Haigh was presented to Jonathan Dyson, editor of industry trade magazine The Wool Record. The Bradford-based journal celebrates its own centenary in May.

Guests at the dinner included David Holdsworth, president of Halifax Textile Society; Thomas Hainsworth, president of Bradford Textile Society; Paul Johnson, chairman of Huddersfield Textile Training Company; session speaker Dr Peter Davies; and Adrian Lee, of Wheawill and Sudworth Chartered Accountants.

The speaker for the evening was Alan Brydon and the MC was outgoing president Ian Brierley.