IT was a case of right place and right time for this year’s Face of Oxford.

The first male model to be chosen, Indroneel Chatterjee, went to Oxford Brookes’ campus to print some forms off and walked into the auditions for Oxford Fashion Week.

It paid off and Thursday night he was crowned the face of the Autumn/Winter event.

The Marston resident, originally from Mumbai, will now appear on all of the publicity materials for the week and will take the lead in each of the five runway shows.

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As well as being the first man to take the role, he is the first non-white person to represent the shows.

The 24-year-old said: “It feels amazing to be the Face of Oxford, really good to be the first man and the first person of ethnicity.

“It’s great to see men being represented in fashion.”

He added: “I came to Oxford last year and was thinking about applying before but I was a bit late.

“This time I did know about it because a friend told me, but I hadn’t planned on auditioning.

“I had gone on to the university campus to print some forms off and I saw there were auditions on and just walked in.”

Oxford Mail:

Mr Chatterjee with Tiffany Saunders

The Oxford Brookes University graduate, who has a Masters in hospitality and tourism, was chosen by the week’s directors Carl Anglim and Tiffany Saunders out of more than 130 applicants.

One of the factors they took into consideration was a public vote on Facebook, where hundreds of people chose who they wanted to win.

Mr Chatterjee’s image was not the most popular on Facebook, coming in second with 416 votes. He said: “I got many of my friends from across the world to vote.”

As well as friends his parents, Aditi and Biswajit, who work in the hotel and pharmaceutical industries in India, supported him by sharing the links to his voting page.

Mr Chatterjee said that while he is interested in modelling, he is not about to give up his studies.

He said: “I’m looking forward to meeting a lot of people and the right people but at the same time I want to focus on academia as well.

“It’s getting the right balance between them.”

Mr Anglim said: “Indroneel was a front-runner from the start for two reasons: first his great personality, he’s really warm and brings an energy to the room. I think he would be a great ambassador for the week.

“Secondly, the look. He’s very photogenic and is very striking, and for someone that doesn’t have much experience he takes to the runway very naturally.”

Oxford Fashion Week will run from November 3 to November 8. For more information visit oxfordfashionweek.com

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