We’re getting closer to finding out which talented emerging designer will be the next to win LVMH’s coveted Young Fashion Designer award. This group of eight handpicked brands will compete for a prize of €30,000 and a year-long mentorship with an LVMH team in order to help get their label to the next level. Last year, Thomas Tait took home the big prize and two runners-up (Hood by Air and Miuniku) received €10,000 and a mentorship as well.
This year’s list of top contenders includes Milan-based label Arthur Arbesser, Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant’s Coperni, London menswear designer Craig Green, French designer Faustine Steinmetz, buzzy French brand Jacquemus designed by Simon Porte, Marta Marques and Paulo Almeida’s Marques’Almeida, the Paris-based brand Vetements designed by Demna Gvasalia and a team of Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts grads and Virgil Abloh’s Off-White label.
Interestingly enough, all of these brands, regardless of where the designers are from, are based in Europe — either London, Paris or Milan, a far cry from last year’s crop of finalists, who designed in cities like New York, Mumbai and Moscow. But despite the finalists’ gravitation toward creating in Europe’s fashion capitals, they all hail from different countries, including the U.S., Georgia, Portugal, France, Austria and the U.K.
The final winner of the prize will be selected in May by a jury of nine LVMH artistic directors.
[via LVMH Prize]
