Let's Design, a pan-India competition that educates and inspires young designers to work with cotton fabrics, has selected five young designers from north region for the final round to be held Feb 5.

Vimal Abinash, Sanya Mukesh Jain, Gurman Singh Chawla, Padmaraj Keshri and Harjosh Singh Gioraya are the top five contestants who were selected from over 2,000 entries. These five will now compete with seven other selected candidates from Kolkata and Mumbai.

Designers Samant Chauhan and Nitin Bal Chauhan judged the entries and selected the regional winners.

"I am judging this show for the first time. My main aim is to see how the young designers are doing in terms of their design aesthetics and what they are up to. Cotton is very relevant now than ever. I firmly believe that in the age of synthetic fabrics, innovation in cotton should be priority," said Nitin.

Samant, who judged the last edition too, has noticed a drastic improvement in the quality of work.

"There are lot of innovative ideas and lot of people have come up with high fashion garments which is good. It's not pret collection but avant-garde and couture collection which is actually interesting," he told IANS.

He also feels that it is important to create awareness amongst masses about cotton "because there are variety of cotton available in market which people are not aware of. As a designer, it is important for us to educate people".

The contest is organised by Cotton Council International (CCI), in association with the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI).

The winner will receive Rs.1 million and would also get a chance to present his or her creativity at the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Spring-Summer14.

"The winner of this competition will get direct entry to WIFW and that itself is an achievement because its' really difficult to choose designers for the fashion week as the shows are limited. But the winner will get a straight entry and we feel good about it as we believe in promoting young talents," said Sunil Sethi, president, FDCI.