The 9 Finalists from the 2021 LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers Shelby Ying Hyde
Updated 4/29/21:
LVMH has released the names of the nine finalists of its highly-coveted Prize for Young Fashion Designers.
On Wednesday, the luxury conglomerate announced that after going completely digital and letting the public vote on their favorite, there were not the usual eight, but nine designers who made the cut. The list of finalists includes, Bianca Saunders, Charles de Vilmorin, Christopher John Rogers, Conner Ives, KidSuper’s Colm Dillane, Kika Vargas, Lukhanyo Mdingi, Nensi Dojaka, and Rui’s Rui Zhou. The group of talent will go on to the next and last round to win the final prize of a be-spoke one-year LVMH mentorship and an $360,000 endowment.
After its first-ever digital showroom and public vote, the LVMH Prize is announcing its 2021 finalists – and in the spirit of doing things differently, there are nine finalists this year instead of the usual eight. Bianca Saunders, Charles de Vilmorin, Christopher John Rogers, Conner Ives, KidSuper’s Colm Dillane, Kika Vargas, Lukhanyo Mdingi, Nensi Dojaka, and Rui’s Rui Zhou are all moving into the final round of the Prize. They come from New York, London, Paris, South Africa, China, and for the first time Albania (Dojaka) and Colombia (Vargas).
“This class of nine finalists is a wonderful snapshot of today’s and tomorrow’s fashion. These young designers are all talented, of course, but also committed and realists. During this semi-final, each of them showed in their own way a very personal and accomplished creative universe,” Delphine Arnault, executive vice president of Louis Vuitton and founder of the LVMH Prize, told
The grand prize will not be awarded until September when (travel-permitting) hopefuls will meet with a soon-to-be-announced jury of starlets. In the meantime, the LVMH-owned retailer 24S and Canadian platform SSENSE will be working with a select number of designers on exclusive capsule collections to whet the industry’s ferocious appetite.
“To all the late nights and the doubting thoughts! It makes going forward and trusting my vision much more worth it,” Bianca Saunders wrote in an Instagram post this morning, thanking her mum “for always telling me to do what I want regardless of it being outside the box”. Similarly, the New Yorker turned London designer Conner Ives gushed “what I am doing right now I’ve dreamed of since I was 5 years old. It was me in my mom’s closet – pretending I had made all of her clothes. Inspecting my handiwork. Living out a fantasy that I had my own label”.
Bianca SaundersPhotography by Jermaine Francis
Announced this morning, the final shortlist for the prestigious award spotlights nine bright young design talents from around the world
April 28, 2021
The
LVMH Prize is perhaps the most anticipated of its kind – for fledgling designers and industry insiders alike. Awarding emerging talent a financial boost of $300,000, while rocketing them into the spotlight, the award has helped launch the careers of many of today’s best-loved brands, from Wales Bonner to Jacquemus.
Whittled down from a staggering 1,900 applicants to just nine finalists, this year’s pool of talent includes a trio of London-based designers – Bianca Saunders, Nensi Dojaka, and Conner Ives – plus six other designers from around the world, including Charles de Vilmorin, Christopher John Rogers, Colm Dillane, Kika Vargas, Lukhanyo Mdingi, and Rui Zhou.