At the age of 39, he has won the international fashion designer prize awarded by the world’s number one luxury group. Ukrainian Julie Pelipas (Bettter brand) and Italian Luca Magliano (Magliano) share the Karl Lagerfeld Prize.
In extremis… The 39-year-old Japanese designer Satoshi Kuwata, creator of the Setchu label, is the 2023 winner of the LVMH Prize. For the past ten years, this international fashion competition has been rewarding young fashion designers who have designed at least two collections and are aged between 18 and…40! In addition to a year’s mentoring by the LVMH group, the winner will receive the prize money associated with this title, which this year has been increased to 400,000 euros. Is this a positive effect of inflation?
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Julie Pelipas (Bettter brand) and Italian Luca Magliano (Magliano) are the joint winners of the Karl Lagerfeld Prize. They will share 200,000 euros and will benefit from one year’s coaching by the Lvmh teams.
100% Lvmh jury
These announcements were made on 7 June at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, in the presence of the nine international designer finalists. They were chosen from 22 semi-finalists by a 100% Lvmh jury. The jury included the group’s “big shots“, Delphine Arnault, CEO of Christian Dior, Sidney Toledano, CEO of Lvmh Fashion Group and Jean-Paul Claverie, patronage advisor, and the artistic heads of its Houses: Jonathan Anderson (Loewe), Maria Grazia Chiuri (Dior women), Nicolas Ghesquière (Louis Vuitton women), Marc Jacobs, Kim Jones (Dior Homme and Fendi women), Nigo (Kenzo), Stella McCartney and Silvia Venturini Fendi.
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In addition to the winners, other contenders included British menswear designer Aaron Esh, Turkish-born French couturier Burc Akyol, Jamaican Rachel Scott (Diotima), American Raul Lopez de Luar, the duo of Filipina-Italian Canadian Paolina Russo and Frenchwoman Lucile Guilmard (Paolina Russo) and Italian Véronica Leoni (Quira). Before the results were announced, they all presented four silhouettes, two on mannequins and two on Stockman, to the guests, journalists and other fashion personalities.
A cosmopolitan and seasoned designer
The overall winner, Satoshi Kuwata, is already a seasoned cosmopolitan designer. Born in Tokyo, he has lived in Milan, London, New York and Paris. He has worked in top international fashion houses (Givenchy, the British tailoring house H.Huntsman & Sons, the Saville Row institution, etc.) and in international design studios with top designers (John Galliano, Riccardo Tisci, Kanye West, Gareth Pugh). He was also artistic director of Edun, the fair trade label run by Bono and Ali Newson.
Under his Setchu label, launched in mid-2020 in the midst of a pandemic, which he describes as “minimalist, functional and artisanal“, with blurred boundaries between men and women, he invents designs that he wants to be “serene and elegant for an active lifestyle to be enjoyed outdoors“. His designs are enriched by his different experiences in tailoring, but also by his Japanese culture and, in particular, the art of origami.
This sewing fanatic, who never stops studying the great designers as well as the history and culture of Japan, has a passion for…fishing. A discipline in which you have to be patient before you land a beautiful fish. It’s a discipline where you have to be patient before you catch a good fish, just like his career, which has now been crowned by a fine catch, the Prix Lvmh.
Read also > LVMH Prize 2023 : The jury’s choice
Featured photo : © Press
