Doublet became the first Japanese brand to take home the LVMH Prize today. At the awards ceremony in Paris, Emma Stone announced that the brand would take home the main award, a prize of €300,000 and a year’s mentorship by the LVMH Group. The Prize was judged by designers Karl Lagerfeld, Maria Grazia Chiuri, Nicolas Ghesquiere, Jonathan Anderson and Marc Jacobs. Doublet is following in the footsteps of Thomas Tait, Marques’Almeida, Grace Wales Bonner and Marine Serre, but is the first streetwear brand to take home the award.
Doublet was an unexpected choice to win this year; fending off critically loved brands like Matthew Adams Dolan, Eckhaus Latta, Kwaidan Editions, A Cold Wall* and Charley Jeffrey. Doublet’s win, though, is another high point for the streetwear aesthetic in fashion, after Supreme won Menswear Designer of the Year at the CFDA Awards in New York yesterday.
Doublet was launched in 2012 by designer Masayuki Ino, a graduate of the Tokyo Mode Academy. Masayuki previously worked as a shoes and accessory for designer Mihara Yasuhiro, before starting his own label. Speaking to i-D last year after Dover Street Market started stocking his collections, he described his clothing as “full of humor and logic. There should be meaning and reason when it comes to creation. When I design and create products, I first brainstorm ideas, then think how to inject my hidden messages and ideas to customers in the actual pieces.”
Korean brand Rokh took home the Special Prize of €150,000 — presented by Jaden Smith — making the awards an all Asian affair, and underscoring the increasing power of the Korean fashion industry, something that will be further highlighted when Seoul’s most talented young fashion stars, Blindness, show their first collection outside Korea at LFWM on Monday.