AN entrepreneur whose new clothing line which promises to tackle sustainability in the children’s fashion industry has won the 2017 James Dyson Award.

Royal College of Art graduate Ryan Yasin designed the stretchy Petit Pli line after becoming frustrated with how quickly his two-year-old niece outgrew the garments he had bought for her months before, and will now walk away with a £2,000 cheque as well as a chance to win on the international stage.

The idea is to allow the clothing to expand, so the 24-year-old’s current design will fit children from six to 36 months and was designed using the Negative Poisson’s ratio, which Mr Yasin first learned about while doing an aeronautical engineering course at Imperial College London.

“It’s an honour to have won the UK James Dyson Award, it’s just great to have that backing and recognition of my solution,” he said. The prize money is an added bonus, but I know how I will use it.

“In addition to supporting my R&D, it will help me form an interdisciplinary team of experts to take Petit Pli to the next level: putting it in the hands of parents worldwide, and making a tangible difference to the way we consume resources in the fashion industry.”

The 24-year-old is now focusing on growing Petit Pli into a business and has already had talks with distributors and manufacturers.