The LVMH Prize Has Been Renamed to Honor Karl Lagerfeld
The prestigious LVMH Prize is paying homage to the late, legendary Karl Lagerfeld. On Wednesday, the organization announced that they are renaming their award for emerging young designers, previously called the Special Prize, changing it to the Karl Lagerfeld Prize.
Lagerfeld had been involved with the LVMH Prize since its founding in 2014 (past winners include Simone Porte Jacquemus, Hood by Air’s Shayne Oliver, Rok Hwang of Rokh, Vejas Kruszewski, and Thomas Tait, who Lagerfeld said “sketches very well”). “He was fully committed to it since day one,” LVMH Executive VP Delphine Arnault told Women’s Wear Daily. “The Karl Lagerfeld Prize naturally perpetuates the closeness we developed over the years and is a tribute to the man’s unique creative genius.”
The honor is even more apt considering that Lagerfeld got his start in fashion by winning a young designer award (alongside, as fate would have it, his career-long rival Yves Saint Laurent).
Arnault added that the name of the prize “naturally perpetuates the closeness we developed over the years and is a tribute to [Lagerfeld’s] unique creative genius, to his ability to turn Paris into the fashion capital of the world.”
The winner of the Karl Lagerfeld prize will receive €150,000 and a one-year mentorship program within LVMH, which includes a crash course in everything from production distribution, intellectual property issues, and marketing. This year’s eight finalists include Arealage by Kunihiko Morinaga, Bethany Williams, Bode by Emily Adams Bode, Hed Mayner, Kenneth Ize by Kenneth Izedonmwen, Phipps by Spencer Phipps, Stefan Cooke by Stefan Cooke, Jake Burt and Thebe Magugu. There were over 1,700 applicants from over 100 countries.
And the jury is stacked–the members of the community that will select the winners of the Karl Lagerfeld Prize and the main Grand Prize (won in recent years by the likes of Grace Wales Bonner and Marine Serre) include Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton’s Nicolas Ghesquière, Givenchy’s Clare Waight Keller, Maria Grazia Chiuri of Dior, Loewe’s Jonathan Anderson, and Berluti’s Kris Van Assche. The winner will be announced on September 4th at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris.
