Hyères Festival finalists on tour at Première Vision Paris

The 30 finalists of the 38th Hyères International Fashion, Photography and Accessories Festival, most of them students at various European fashion academies, are currently gathered in Paris for a series of intriguing visits. Twenty of them, competing in the fashion and accessories categories, will visit the Première Vision show, where they will be able to select fabrics for their festival collections. They will also visit 19M, the craftsmanship hub that is home to Chanel’s Métiers d’arts ateliers, and Hermès, enjoying the opportunity to talk with artisans from both labels, sponsors of different awards within the Hyères festival.

The finalists hail from all over the world, and the awards’ winners will be selected among them at the Hyères Festival, whose centenary edition will be held on October 12-15 at Villa Noailles. The fashion competition’s 10 finalists come from eight countries. They are Tiago Bessa (Portugal), Alec Rhys Bizby (UK), Fengyuan Dai and Norman Mabire-Larguier (France), Igor Dieryck (Belgium), Petra Fagerstrom (Sweden), Leevi Ikäheimo (Finland), Jung Eun Lee and Bo Kwon Min (South Korea), and Marc Sanz Pey (Spain). They are competing for the Première Vision Grand Prize, the 19M Métiers d’arts award, the Mercedes-Benz sustainable collection award and the Chanel-sponsored Atelier des Matériaux prize.

Eleven designers (including a duo) from seven countries have instead been shortlisted for the accessories awards: Gabrielle Huguenot (Switzerland), Yeonghyeon Kim (South Korea), Lisa Kwoczek and Christiane Schwambach (Germany), Mathilde Hiron, Thomas Manil and Victor Salinier (France), Marcel Mariotte & Jovien Panné (France/Spain), Ruby Mellish (UK), and Xin-Yu Weng (Taiwan). They are vying for the Accessories Grand Prize and the Hermès prize for fashion accessories. Notably, Swedish fashion finalist Petra Fagerstrom and French accessories finalist Victor Salinier were shortlisted in 2022 for ITS, the emerging designer competition held in Trieste, Italy, where Salinier won the ITS Responsible Creativity award, sponsored by the Italian Fashion Chamber (CNMI).

At the Villepinte exhibition centre, where the Première Vision textile and apparel show is being held on February 7-9, the finalists will meet the show’s staff on Wednesday morning, February 8, and will receive a list of exhibitors from a variety of sectors (fabrics, leather, denim, knitwear, accessories etc.) willing to provide the materials they will need to produce their festival collections. The finalists will also attend a briefing by the Alliance for European Flax-Linen & Hemp.

The 10 finalists of the festival's photography competition are: Souleymane Bachir Diaw (Senegal), Maria Baoli (Spain), Clara Chichin (France), Thaddé Comar (France-Switzerland), Kin Coedel (Hong Kong), Ezio D'Agostino (Italy), Rebekka Deubner (France-Germany), Quentin Lacombe (France) and Igor Pjörrt (Portugal).

The 2023 Hyères Festival’s three juries will be chaired respectively by young French designer Charles de Vilmorin for the fashion category, jewellery designer Alan Crocetti for the accessories category, and Dominican-American artist Luis Alberto Rodriguez for the photography category. Among the members of the fashion category jury, Antoine Gagey, managing director of Jean-Paul Gaultier; Hubert Barrère, creative director of Chanel-owned Maison Lesage; Babeth Djian, founder and editorial director of Numéro Magazine; and journalist and writer Sophie Fontanel.

Serhat Isik, the creative director of the GMBH and Trussardi labels, will feature in the accessories category jury. The photography jury, which in the previous edition included creative directors Matthieu Blazy (of Bottega Veneta) and Pieter Mulier (of Alaïa), will feature a bevy of renowned designers this year too, like Francesco Risso, in charge of Marni, and Edward Buchanan, founder of Sansovino 6.

Hyères Festival finalists on tour at Première Vision Paris

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