With a judging panel consisting of leading fashion industry players like Karl Lagerfeld and Marc Jacobs, the standards are going to be insanely high. Entrants had to be under 40 years old and have sold or presented two ready-to-wear collections, with one lucky winner receiving a grant worth €300,000 and a year’s worth of mentoring.
The winner isn’t set to be announced until May, but recently works by all 30 of the shortlisted designers were on show in Paris for one very fashionable inspection, which included Anna Wintour. The task at hand is to now whittle the list down to 10 finalists from which an overall winner will be selected.
We’re excited to see that several London-based designers have made it into the final 30, and we’re crossing everything for at least two of them to be recognized within the final set. Our money is on either Simone Rocha or Meadham Kirchhoff.
Both are Central Saint Martins alumni who have gone on to receive an accolade of positive mentions following their Fashion Week collections and are steadily building their design houses. Watch this space to find out who makes the final 10!
Images: ImaxTree
