ANDAM adds Hermès, Kering and LVMH execs to board

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jan 6, 2021

ANDAM, France’s leading independent award for young talent, has added three high-level luxury executives from Hermès, Kering and LVMH to its board in a significant overhaul of the organization.

 
In something of a surprise ANDAM announced that Guillaume de Seynes, Hermès director general; Jean-François Palus, the rugby-fan director general of Kering and Sidney Toledano, the CEO of the LVMH Fashion Group, had all been elected members of the Conseil d’Administration, or board of ANDAM.
 
The news will be seen, in part, as a rapprochement between ANDAM and LVMH, which has focused in the past half decade on its own LVMH Prize, albeit the two prizes have slightly different formats.

Founded in 1989 by fashion editor Nathalie Dufour, ANDAM has grown to be a highly influential award for young international talent, with a proven track record of picking important up and coming designers. Its first winner was Martin Margiela, and subsequent laureates have included Viktor & Rolf, Jeremy Scott, AMI, Iris Van Herpen and Y/Project.

 

 
This year its total annual prize is €500,000 making ANDAM – whose full name is the Association Nationale pour les Développements des Arts de la Mode - the richest award in fashion.
 
The president of ANDAM continues to be Guillaume Houzé, a senior member of the family that owns Galeries Lafayette, France’s most important department store chain. Under his influence the award has increasingly focused on innovative and technological start-ups in fashion.
 
“The confidence that the house of Hermès and groups like LVMH and Kering accord us by joining our board honors the history of ANDAM, and is a testimony to our association’s central role in the transformation of fashion,” Houzé said.

 
Many other key luxury and fashion brands are represented on the board of ANDAM, which is legally an association of public interest in France. It includes representatives of Chanel, Longchamp and multiple fashion organizations including the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode; fashion school IFM; the Ministry of Culture; the Decorative Arts Museum of the Louvre; fashion financing agency Défi; and Madison Cox of the Pierre Bergé and Yves Saint Laurent Foundation. Bergé having been a key and constant supporter of ANDAM throughout his life.
 
The actual election to the board took place in December, but maintaining the French quango tradition of taking days or even weeks to announce a decision, the news was only released on Wednesday.