See all the party pictures here...

is the toast of London – and, on Tuesday night, she was the toast of the newly-reopened Café Royal too, as some of the capital’s most fashionable faces came out to celebrate her ELLE/Cointreau Bursary win.

ELLE’s editor-in-chief Lorraine Candy and Cointreau UK's Alvin Saal welcomed guests – among them Lulu Kennedy, Yasmin Sewell, Dominic Jones and Browns founder Joan Burstein, plus the formidable Rocha clan and ELLE’s fashion team – to the fittingly iconic venue.

They enjoyed Cointreau-based cocktails and flutes of Piper-Heidsieck Champagne with canapés in Café Royal’s iconic Grill Room before moving into the Nash Room for a dinner of roast breast and confit leg Wellington of black leg chicken, braised cabbage, wild mushrooms and honey mustard sauce, followed by Cointreau savarin, pineapple vanilla salad and blood orange sorbet and coffee and sweetmeats.

The ELLE/Cointreau bursary is a fund of £100,000, launched to help fledgling London designers develop their labels into serious international businesses. As part of her win, Rocha will serve for a year as creative director of Cointreau, and chronicle her experiences in an exclusive ELLE blog.

‘This is a groundbreaking award that will help Simone to expand her business and meet the ever-growing demands of her fans,’ Candy says of Rocha’s win. ‘ELLE has a proud history of championing young talent and now we can help them grow financially too.’

Take an exclusive look inside the party now, only with ELLE.

Simone Rocha's ELLE blog