LGN Louis-Gabriel Nouchi Wins 2023 ANDAM Fashion Award
PARIS — LGN Louis-Gabriel Nouchi beat five other finalists to score the grand prize of the 2023 edition of the ANDAM Fashion Award.
The winner, who receives 300,000 euros and a year of coaching from Chloé chief executive officer Riccardo Bellini, was revealed at an open-air ceremony in the gardens of the Palais-Royal in Paris on Thursday night.
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Paris-based Nouchi, who sought to redefine male sensuality with his spring 2024 collection inspired by the 1964 novel “A Single Man” and presented on June 22, proposes gender-fluid collections with a literary inspiration, prioritizing the use of fabrics with low environmental impact, natural dyes and buttons and labels made of recycled plastic.
Asked what he would invest in first, the newly minted winner deadpanned “holidays,” before explaining that the award and adjoining purse money had landed at a crucial juncture for his six-year-old label as its expansion accelerates.
“I believe we sustain and underwrite growth with values in terms of real social and environmental responsibility,” he said. “Our challenges this year are logistics, packaging, storage — not glamorous but that’s where we can have real impact on a capitalist model and show it’s profitable with these values built in.”
Nouchi hopes to hire new staff while promoting existing employees, as well as broach topics like marketing and a website revamp.
After what Bellini described was a tough session debating the merits of a “very unique” selection of finalists, he said the “unprecedented in the history of the ANDAM” decision had been taken to award two runner-up prizes.
“This places the ANDAM as one of the most powerful, productive, effective platforms — ecosystems — to support creativity,” Bellini said.
Ester Manas and Duran Lantink both received the Special Prize, established in 2022. Each will receive a cash award of 100,000 euros plus coaching from Frédéric Maus, general director of Première Classe organizer WSN Développement.
The former is the Brussels-based label founded by Manas and Delepierre, working size-inclusive designs mainly with deadstock fabrics.
Lantink, who is based in Amsterdam and has since moved to Paris, made an off-calendar Paris debut last February showcasing polished twists on his knack for upcycling designer clothing from older seasons, cutting up pieces from different brands and putting them back together.
“I feel excited,” said Lantink, whose elation was mixed with exhaustion. “It’s so nerve-racking and it’s kind of, I don’t know, a day feels like yesterday, or a year ago. But I feel very happy that I have the support and just can continue my journey in Paris.”
He plans to use the prize money to set up a permanent presence in the French capital.
“I want to go more into sustainable materials and I want to move to Paris, so this is really helpful to set up a studio, expand my team,” said Lantink, who hopes to show his spring 2024 collection on the official calendar next fall. “We’re very busy with that, doing a lot of upcycling, recycling, deadstock and all these kinds of things.”
Manas and Balthazar said the win felt especially good after a season that saw brands taking a step backward in terms of size diversity on the runways.
“We were scared, but the industry said yes, in a way. This is a real recognition, and they’re giving us the keys to the castle,” Manas said. “One, that gives us fresh confidence. Two, it’s fuel for what comes next. Three, it proves we weren’t wrong. And four, it also proves that people fought for us. They gave out two special prizes, so there was disagreement.”
Manas was pleased that their work was provoking debate. “Creating fashion without meaning no longer makes sense. So I’m going to sleep well tonight, in every sense of the term, and in terms of our day-to-day operations, this money is a breath of fresh air, because being a young brand today is not always easy,” she said.
“I’m happy to be able to go home and tell my family, ’See mom, I was right,’” she said.
The other finalists were GmbH’s Benjamin Huseby and Serhat Isik; Marie-Christine Statz of Paris-based label Gauchere, and Italian designer Andrea Adamo’s Andreadamo label.
Candidates for ANDAM’s grand prize can be of any nationality, but must own a French company or set one up during the same year as the receipt of the fellowship.
Avellano by Arthur Avellano, which specializes in latex creations, won the Pierre Bergé Prize, which focuses on young French companies and is worth 100,000 euros.
“Latex pays off,” he said with obvious relish, feeling validated in a 10-year journey that started when he was a student at the Beaux-Arts.
“For years, I was told to stop because it was too sticky, it didn’t work but I’m someone who is very stubborn. But after a while, you realize it pays off and you have to keep going even though it’s not easy, you don’t sleep at night, you lose money,” he continued, reminding that his signature material is plant-based and most importantly, “cool.”
The other two contenders for that prize were Ouest Paris, a Paris-based menswear label founded by former Ami designer Arthur Robert, and Vaillant, designed by Alice Vaillant, known for lingerie-inspired camisole tops and slip dresses worn by the likes of Kylie Jenner and Rita Ora.
Ukrainian milliner Ruslan Baginskiy, whose hats are featured in Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” tour, won the Accessories Prize, now valued at 100,000 euros, up from 50,000 euros previously.
The moment felt surreal for the Kyiv-based designer, given that he and his team “live in total bipolarity” between the fashion circuit and their war-torn homeland. “This shows people in my country that everything is possible and that’s a big thing, especially now,” more than 16 months after the start of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, he said.
He was still weighing the opportunities that lay ahead of him, whether it was opening a shop in Paris, “his big dream,” or expanding on his presentations. But there was one opportunity he missed because he was busy fielding interviews — a selfie with 2023 jury member Gigi Hadid.
The other two accessories finalists were Alighieri, the London-based jewelry label founded by Rosh Mahtani, and Paris-based jewelry brand Panconesi by Italian designer Marco Panconesi, who moonlights as design director at Swarovski.
With Chloé’s Bellini as this year’s mentor, designers needed to demonstrate a strong sense of social responsibility to wow a jury that included Quannah Chasinghorse-Potts, American model and land protector for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; Mexican climate activist Xiye Bastida, and Trisha Shetty, human rights campaigner and founder of SheSays, an Indian NGO working to promote gender equality.
Hadid and fellow model Pat Cleveland were also guest jurors for this edition, as was Iranian-born actress and director Zar Amir Ebrahimi, who won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival last year for her role in “Holy Spider.”
Although five brands walked away with gongs, all 12 finalists will have access to deadstock materials provided by Balenciaga and Longchamp, while OTB will run a workshop on best practices in sustainable design.
They will also be showcased at WSN and Première Classe’s trade shows. France-based finalists will have privileged access to the accelerator program of the Institut Français de la Mode, and financial advice from the Institute for the Financing of Cinema and the Cultural Industries, which supports cultural industries in France.
Created in 1989 by Nathalie Dufour with the support of the French Ministry of Culture and the DEFI, a body that promotes the development of the French fashion industry, and with the late Pierre Bergé as president, ANDAM has been a springboard for designers who would go on to achieve international recognition.
Past winners include Viktor & Rolf, Christophe Lemaire, Jeremy Scott and Marine Serre. British menswear designer Bianca Saunders scooped the 2021 prize, while Botter, designed by Lisi Herrebrugh and Rushemy Botter, scored the top gong last year.
ANDAM — the French acronym for National Association of the Development of the Fashion Arts — is supported by large corporate sponsors, which now include Balenciaga, Chanel, Chloé, Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent, Galeries Lafayette, Google, Hermès, Instagram, Kering, Lacoste, Longchamp, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, L’Oréal Paris, Mytheresa, OTB, Premiere Classe, Saint Laurent, Swarovski and Tomorrow.
The French Ministry of Culture and the DEFI, a body that promotes the development of the French fashion industry, are also key historic public partners of ANDAM.
Executives from most sponsors comprise permanent members of the jury, and Glenn Martens, Y/Project and Diesel creative director, served on behalf of OTB.
Launch Gallery: Inside the ANDAM Prize 2023
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