Alexander McQueen has won a top design award after his death for his Spring/Summer 2010 fashion collection, which was streamed online to 40 million viewers from Paris’s fashion show. The Brit Insurance Design of the Year award shortlist was made out before the British designer died last month at only 40 years old, and he won the fashion category. Also in the running was singer Beth Ditto, who was nominated for the collection she created for plus-size clothes store Evans.

Judge and Grazia magazine style director Paula Reed said that the jury wants to make it clear that the choice to put McQueen up for the award was made before his death and not for sentimental reasons. The designer was working on developing fabrics that could blend the hard into soft throughout his career, she continued, and had come pretty close to achieving that in this collection. The impressiveness compounds the huge loss of his life, she said, adding that McQueen is a clear winner.

Experts in the industry nominated international designs from 7 categories, which include: product, architecture, transport, furniture, fashion, graphics and interactive. Others up for the Design of the Year award in other categories include Monterrey Housing, a new model for Mexican social housing, and Grassworks, for a flat pack furniture kit. Chair of the judges Antony Gormley, an artist, says that winners of the 7 categories provide a glimpse at some of the most outstanding designs over the last year.

Now a winner of all 7 of the categories will be announced March 16. The shortlisted designs and winning entries will be shown at the Design Museum until June 6.