Fashion Week's 21 designers tailored by one London college

The release of the event's schedule today seals the reputation of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design as the world's pre-eminent fashion school.

A roll-call of more than 20 of its alumni, from Christopher Kane to Luella Bartley, are taking part.

Fashion critic Sarah Mower, who writes for American Vogue and Style.com, said the college was "100 per cent responsible" for the current success of the British fashion industry and was "the Harvard of fashion".

She singled out Professor Louise Wilson, 45, who has run the college's masters course since 2004 and is renowned for her dedication, refusing to take time off while being treated for breast cancer.

Mower said: "St Martins is boot camp but what is incredible about Louise Wilson is that she breaks designers down to focus on what they are about personally. She sees what the individual talent is."

Hilary Riva, chief executive of the British Fashion Council, which runs fashion week, added: "London is home to some of the world's premier art colleges. The fashion world is indebted to Professor Wilson, who has nurtured young designers into the influential names they have become today."

The college is part of the University of the Arts London. Its main site is at Southampton Row, Holborn, although there are plans for it to move to a campus in newly redeveloped King's Cross in 2010.

St Martins was created in 1989 from the merger of the Central School of Art and Design, founded in 1896, and St Martins School of Art, founded in 1854, and was given university status in 2004.

Students are offered training in fine art, fashion and textiles, film, video and photography as well as theatre and performance.

Its alumni include artists Gilbert and George (who met there), Richard Long, Peter Blake and Lucian Freud; actor Pierce Brosnan, writer A S Byatt and designer Terence Conran.

Its staff have included sculptors Sir Anthony Caro and Barry Flanagan.

The college was also a hotbed of musical talent, and a plaque on site marks the place where the Sex Pistols played their first gig.

London Fashion Week will take place from 10 to 15 February.

Among this year's other exhibitors will be Vivienne Westwood, who is returning for the first time in nine years to show her Red Label collection for autumn/winter 2008.