The LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers was launched in 2014 with the goal of supporting emerging and graduate fashion designers in building a brand in this very competitive fashion industry. According to their website, 2,000 designers have applied from 102 different nationalities with an average age of 29 years old. There have been 5 winners so far, including last years' winner, London-based label Marques'Almeida. Other finalists have included Simone Rocha, Agi & Sam, Christopher Shannon, Craig Green and Shayne Oliver of Hood By Air fame. This competition is an amazing opportunity for emerging fashion designers on so many levels! First, the LVMH Prize has quickly become something extremely noteworthy to have in your bio, as the judges on the panel have themselves earned such high esteem in the industry. Also, besides the obvious benefit of such a large grant, LVMH has had a long time to work through the challenges throughout the industry and having the opportunity to learn from some of those who have been in the trenches could save hours, if not years, of headache and heartache trying to figure it out on your own.
There are two prizes to be had with the LVMH Price competition: the Young Fashion Designers prize and the Graduate Prize.
The Young Fashion Designer's competition is open to fashion designers from any country, given they have produced at least 2 collections and are under 40 years old. The winner of this prize receives a grant of €300,000 and varied support from the LVMH Group in Paris for 12 months following receiving the award. The support covers a range of areas necessary for an emerging fashion brand to be successful in the industry, from intellectual property, production, advertising, marketing, etc.
The Graduates prize is open to students of fashion schools who are completing a degree course at a fashion school in 2015-2016. For this prize, even the schools are incentivised! Three winners are chosen in this category and both they and their school receive a €10,000 grand and an opportunity to work as part of the LVMH brand on the design team for a year.
There is a panel of fashion experts who have been charged with pre-selecting the ten finalists who will go on to jury selection. Some of the names on this panel are Karlie Kloss, Suzy Menkes and Editor-in-Chief of Harper's Bazaar US Glenda Bailey, along with other professionals from all areas of the fashion world including stylists, buyers, journalists and photographers.
All of the juggernauts of the LVMH houses are on the judging panel, from Karl Lagerfeld, Marc Jacobs, Riccardo Tisci, Nicolas Ghesquière, Phoebe Philo, J.W. Anderson and Humberto Leon and Carol Lim of Kenzo. Sitting alongside these big names will be Delphine Arnault, Jean-Paul Claverie and Pierre-Yves Roussel, all senior members within the LVMH group.
Applications for the LVMH Prize Young Fashion Designers competition are now open and close on February 7th, 2016. If you meet the qualifications, you can click here to go to the application page. Hurry, there is only a couple of weeks left to get your application in!
For the graduate competition, applications are now open and close May 15th, 2016. If you meet the requirements for the Graduate competition, here is the page where you can get all of the information about applying.
The selection of the ten (10) finalists will begin in March of 2016 with the winner being selected in June 2016.
We are looking forward to seeing what amazing designers come out of the competition this year. And best of luck if you are so brave and driven to enter the competitions!