LVMH Postpones Designer Prize Final Until September
WAITING TO EXHALE: The eight finalists for the LVMH Prize for Young Designers will have to hold their breath for a few months longer: the finals of the competition, traditionally held in June, has been postponed until Sept. 4, the group said Wednesday.
LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the luxury conglomerate which holds the annual prize, did not provide a reason for the delay, but a source familiar with the situation cited calendar conflicts among some of the senior executives and designers expected to attend the prize-giving ceremony.
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Last year’s event took place on June 6 in the presence of Emma Stone and Jaden Smith, both Louis Vuitton brand ambassadors. Japanese designer Masayuki Ino won the main prize with his streetwear label Doublet, while the runner-up special prize went to South Korean designer Rok Hwang’s London-based women’s wear label Rokh.
Among those competing for this year’s grand prize of 300,000 euros, plus a year of coaching from experts at family-controlled LVMH — the parent of brands including Louis Vuitton, Dior and Fendi — are four labels making gender-neutral clothes, two women’s wear designers and two men’s wear designers.
The finalists are Anrealage, designed by Kunihiko Morinaga; Bethany Williams; Bode by Emily Adams Bode; Hed Mayner; Kenneth Ize; Phipps by Spencer Phipps; Stefan Cooke by Stefan Cooke and Jake Burt, and Thebe Magugu.
They will face a jury stacked with LVMH fashion stars, including for the first time Berluti’s Kris Van Assche. He will join Maria Grazia Chiuri, Marc Jacobs, Nicolas Ghesquière, Jonathan Anderson, Clare Waight Keller, Humberto Leon and Carol Lim, as well as Delphine Arnault, Jean-Paul Claverie and Sidney Toledano.
The sixth edition of the prize drew 1,700 applications from more than 100 countries.
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