Walking round Collect, the international fair for contemporary craft and design, last month I was fascinated to see how many designers and craftsmen on dealer Adrian Sassoon’s stand had first caught my attention at graduation shows put on by London’s Royal College of Art.

They included ceramicist Kate Malone, whose exuberant, oversized jug I bought for less than £100 ($164) in 1996; glass artist Bruno Romanelli, whose figurative work so captivated me in 1995 that I included him in a Sotheby’s exhibition; and silversmith Hiroshi Suzuki, whose distinctive, organic vessels I admired in 1999 and have since showed several times. All three have since seen their work acquired by museums and collectors around the world.

The RCA is the UK’s only postgraduate arts institution, a “finishing school” for creativity. Next month, with the retirement of rector Sir Christopher Frayling and design products professor Ron Arad, the college will enter a new era. Frayling will hand the baton to Paul Thompson, director of the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York, while Arad’s place will be taken by Dutch designer Tord Boontje, who was, in fact, another of my early “discoveries”, when he graduated from the RCA in 1994.

Their task is a difficult one. Recessions can be devastating for fledgling designers and too often RCA students leave with no knowledge of finance, marketing or business management, perhaps because tutors think these “unpleasant” subjects might conflict with the creative process. As graduate Simon Hasan, who participated in Fendi’s Punk Craft show at Milan’s Salone Internazionale del Mobile this year and recently won a bursary from Vauxhall cars, says: “I finished the RCA at the start of a journey; it wasn’t the end at all.”

RCA graduate Fabien Cappello

Yet when I find myself curating a new show and advising young exhibitors on how to price work, read contracts and honour commitments, I’ve never seen it dampen their creativity and all are willing to learn. And, even in bleak economic times, many have gone on to great success.

Each year my primary hunting ground for talent is the RCA degree show, held in two parts over the summer; I’m joined by other collectors and curators, retailers and manufacturers and collectors who flock to shop for work at very good prices.

People often ask what I look for. When I step through the door I have no set rules or preconceived ideas about what I hope to discover. All I know is that when I see “it” a bell rings in my head, there is a little flutter in my heart and the adrenalin starts to rush. It’s not very scientific but it’s my way of knowing I have seen something special. I want to be surprised, even taken aback, by work that is fresh, witty and original. I am not interested in anything that is derivative. What I look for is potential, a strong individual voice and some undefinable spark.

I met Jasper Morrison, now one of the world’s most respected furniture designers, in the mid-1980s, shortly after he left the RCA. A few years later, before his career took off, my husband and I commissioned a sofa and chair from him, on the recommendation of his professor, Floris Van den Broecke. They are elegantly restrained and timeless and still used every day in our home. Morrison, meanwhile, has taken on not only furniture work for important manufacturers but also big industrial projects including a tram for the city of Hanover.

RCA graduate Katharine Morling

The RCA’s 1990s degree shows turned up more stars – Malone, Romanelli, Suzuki and, of course, Boontje. In 2000 I curated a show called The Unexpected in New York and showed a selection of the Dutchman’s decorative, etched glass vases and chairs made from felt and silicone. Design retailer Murray Moss bought the entire stock and within a short time made Boontje a star. Swarovski commissioned the Blossom chandelier that Habitat mass-produced and, at £15, it is their best-selling product.

Although I enjoy commissioning pieces from young designers for my own home, it is through exhibitions that they get the most exposure. In 2003, for example, I included several RCA students in Waste to Taste, a show of designs made from rubbish: a ball gown of used coffee filters, a chandelier made from more than 50,000 paper clips and dozens of home furnishings made with Woolworths Pick n’Mix sweets. Martino Gamper, who was enrolled in the college at the time, showed a collection of furniture “made of other furniture”, salvaged from skips, the street and friends’ houses; four years later I sponsored his acclaimed “100 Chairs in 100 Days” project and he is now a well-known, influential designer.

Barnaby Barford was another Waste to Taste exhibitor who had recently graduated from the RCA. Visitors were not terribly enthusiastic about his “tastefully” kitsch sculptures with figurines scoured from markets and bric-a-brac shops but ­gallerist David Gill was impressed and soon afterwards gave Barford a solo show. He is now a respected designer, animator and tutor at the college. In the same year Peter Traag caught my eye with his Sponge Chair at the RCA degree show. And I wasn’t the only one. Italian furniture manufacturer Edra decided to put it into immediate production and within a year Traag was one of its protégé superstars.

RCA graduate Ioli Kalliopi Sifakaki

2006 was a similar story. Paul Cocksedge impressed me but not as much as he did lighting maestro Ingo Maurer, who invited the young man to share his space in Milan the following year. Cocksedge is now one of the UK’s most prolific designers, working with companies such as Flos and Swarovski.

Not everyone who caught my attention has gone on to great fame. In 2004 I fell in love with and bought a fantastic (and totally non-functional) glass chair lined with liquid silver for £1,650 – I still have the invoice – which visitors to my house always ask about and admire. But I have no idea what the designer, Jochen Holz, is doing today.

Others whose careers are still works in progress include 2007 graduate Kelly ­McCallum, whose conceptual jewellery – embryos of chickens and a mouse set in precious metals – I found shocking and uncomfortable but also compelling, and 2008 graduate Pernille Braun, who makes beautiful sculptural glass I included in the first of my Small Show, Huge Talent exhibitions at Sotheby’s in May. McCallum has recently started designing wallpaper and fabrics. Pernille has meanwhile sold a piece to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

My thoughts on work from this year’s crop of RCA students are in the panel left and I eagerly await next year’s show, under the new regime. It will be interesting to see how the college can, in the words of Frayling, “nurture originality, creativity and professionalism”, while also preparing students with the necessary skills to survive in a tough and volatile world economy.

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Standout students of 2009

Linda Brothwell. Having trained as a jeweller in Sheffield, Brothwell later studied the ancient Japanese ceramic repair technique of Kintsugi and will soon learn traditional lace-making skills in Slovakia. She refers to herself modestly as “a maker, repairer” but I think her knives and necklaces are little works of art.

Charlotte Sale. With hand-blown glass dishes, bowls and vases in rich jewel colours priced from £100- £300, Sale was “overwhelmed” by customer interest.

Hitomi Hosono. Her Jewellery series of decorative porcelain plates and Jasper boxes painted inside with gold lacquer are a little “pretty” for my taste but both are already commercially successful. Wedgwood and Royal Crown Derby have shown interest.

Purnima Patel. Patel’s elegant glass plates and etched decanters with an Indian sensibility in a lovely palette of colours are well designed and also quite commercial.

Katharine Morling. Her “still-life” sculptures in unglazed porcelain – oversized bunches of keys, enormous tool boxes, chairs and tables – in black and white have a graphic, rather cartoon-like appearance.

Brigit Connolly. Her eye-catching “A Place at The Table” installation consisted of enormous, organic tableware in clay and wood arranged on a circular table – functional works of art.

Lisa Stockham. She says her striking sculptural coiled clay vessels “grow and unravel”; I found the work both interesting and sophisticated.

Fabien Cappello. He makes benches and stools from Christmas trees discarded after the festive season. They are original, “green” in every way and great looking. The day I visited the RCA studio it looked like Santa’s workshop with designers labouring at their desks like busy elves.

Giles Miller. His grandfather clock with gold hands is already in production, retailing at £28 (and yes, it works). I really fell for the tables made entirely from Lego pieces but at £2,500 they were beyond my reach.

Ioli Kalliopi Sifakaki. Sifakaki refers to her wooden Torso Table as “a map of the body”. Resting on top is a 25-piece dinner service of “body parts” with a “goose-pimpley” texture, which she cast by holding ice cubes against her skin – a gimmick perhaps but also a labour of love.

Emma Caselton Her intelligently thought-out products included a lamp sponsored by Mothercare, which sits at floor level under a cot so the light won’t distract a sleeping baby.

Honourable mentions

Aysenaz Toker. Glass inspired by traditional Turkish techniques.
Therese Glimskar. Practical space-saving storage products.
Olivia Decaris. Imaginative glass and metalwork.

Praise for professors

Hans Stofer, who encouraged Bothwell to pursue her highly unusual interests, and Felicity Aylieff, an accomplished potter, who encourages her students to develop in very individual directions.

The Financial Times is a media partner for Show RCA 2009. The second graduate exhibition opened on June 24 and runs until July 5. Tel: +44 (0)20-7590 4498, www.rca.ac.uk