After spending the last three years across the Channel in London — with Thomas Tait, Marques’Almeida and Grace Wales Bonner taking home the top gong at LVMH Prize — the 2017 edition of the prestigious fashion award went through on the Eurostar to Paris, with young French designer Marine Serre winning the €300,000 Grand Prize.
Marine is a graduate of Brussels’ Academy of La Cambre Mode, her graduate collection in 2016 won acclaim and saw her pick up stockists from Dover Street Market, to The Broken Arm and Opening Ceremony. The collection, titled Radical Call For Love, mixed element of traditional Arab dress with colourful and nostalgic 90s inspired sportswear. Marine showed at this year’s Hyères festival, and works as a junior designer for Demna Gvasalia at Balenciaga, having previously interned under Raf at Dior, and at Maison Margiela.
New York-based Japanese menswear designer Kozaburo Akasaka took home the Special Prize for his eponymous line, Kozaburo. Born in Tokyo, he studied at CSM in London before completing his MFA at Parsons, and taking part in VFiles’ spring/summer 16 runway show. His aesthetic is defined by a mix of musical subcultures and emotional embellishment.
The prize was presented by Rihanna this afternoon in Paris, and was judged by a panel of top fashion designers and industry bigwigs including Karl Lagerfeld, Maria Grazia Chiuri, Jonathan Anderson, Humerto Leon and Carol Lim, Phoebe Philo, Riccardo Tisci, and Delphine Arnault.
Credits
Text Felix Petty
Image via LVMH