STUDENTS from Buckinghamshire Chiltern University College took the prestigious Milan Furniture Fair Salon Satellite by storm.

They came home with their order books bursting with potential customers and offers from around the world to produce their furniture.

Their success and recognition took the eight students and their tutor Neil Austin by surprise.

Course tutor Andy Hale says: " We thought people would be interested but not as much as they were."

The students' pieces are now being been spoken in the same breath as design icons Cappellini, Morso, Driade and Bater i Italia - whose works are seen on the pages of glossy home magazines and in the showrooms of Gucci and Prada.

The students, who are all in the third year or are post graduates from the Furniture and Related Product Design course, are Sarah Chadwick, Emilios Charalambides, Anthony Dickens, Matthew Edmonds, Tim Gadd, Barry Hill, Pam West and Warren Forbes.

The theme behind their exhibition, called Mo-billy, was to design furniture, lighting and other products for flexible, multi-purpose spaces.

All the pieces were created to fit into the demands of contemporary living, working and entertaining.

"We set ourselves up as profession designers and not students and that is why I feel we had so much success," says Andy.

For many of the students the experience of Milan was a dream come true.

Only a few months ago Matthew Edmonds was inspired by the work of his hero Cappelline, now his Map Cabinet, a free-standing storage unit which can be used from the back and front, is being put into production by the Italian designer.

Emilios Charalambides came away from the show with a designer interested in his sculptural seating arrangement Spaceman Chaise, a group of identical foam blocks that can be adapted to suit different needs.

Neil Austin's Youngman Chair which is a metal high chair-cum-step ladder was picked up by an American architect to put by the swimming pool of a home he is designing in Florida.

And the Hat and Coat Stand, a flexible storage system for hats and coats, by Pam West was snapped up by buyers at the show.

Also catching the eye of the top designers was Tim Gadd with his trolley on wheels, Barry Hill with his storage system based on cubism, Warren Forbes with his computer work station and Sarah Chadwick with her bench.

Andy says: "The whole experience feels as if it has been the revival of the furniture industry in High Wycombe. What we were showing has highlighted High Wycombe as the furniture town of England again."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.