Botter, designed by Lisi Herrebrugh and Rushemy Botter, beat out seven finalists for the ANDAM Fashion Award 2022 grand prize.
The winner, who receives €300,000 and a year of training from Chanel’s Bruno Pavlovsky, was revealed at an outdoor ceremony in the gardens of the Palais-Royal in Paris on Thursday night.
Herrebrugh and Botter, who were also artistic directors for Nina Ricci until earlier this year, tap into their roots — Curacao for their part and the Dominican Republic for hers — for their gender-fluid clothing rooted in Caribbean culture.
Moments after their victory, reality had yet to sink in for the duo and their first thought was of their fellow contestants.
“They are all so good and so talented,” said Herrebrugh, with Botter adding that he wanted to congratulate the group as “they all have their own worlds and we also know what they go through and what it means to each of us.”
A question as to whether they knew what they would spend their profit on was answered with an emphatic “yes” with the couple naming biotextiles and growing the team as priorities as “they still do everything they [they] they’ve done so far with just a team of three,” plus freelancers, he said.
“We need people who are open-minded and constantly looking for new developments to really push away all the classic ideas you know about fashion and move on. [To] imagine a different future that is better for the world,” he continued, as Botter added a more concrete twist by naming finance and marketing as an experience they wanted to add.
London-based womenswear brand Robert Wun, the subject of a recent exhibition at the Savannah College of Art and Design museum in Atlanta, received the Special Prize, which comes with a cash endowment of €100,000 plus training in both the creative as well as strategic dimensions of their fledgling businesses. The second prize is new to the 2022 edition, reflecting the generosity of new and established sponsors and recognizing the strength of the high caliber talent that the awards have recently been attracting.
“I’m surprised,” Wun said, explaining that his mindset was to always be happy, in case things didn’t work out.
The first order of business is to move to a new studio, as the current one is getting tense, before working on his new collection and perhaps showing in Paris. “I have to manifest that,” he continued, polishing his trophy like the proverbial lamp in fairy tales and naming this as one of the areas he’s considering spending the prize money on.
The most important thing for him and the other winners was the mentoring, “to grow in the right way, [knowing] who to hire, what to do next, where to make, where to sell – how to properly grow into a house,” he continued.
The other finalists were: Berlin-based womenswear brand Ottolinger, established by Swiss-born designers Christa Bösch and Cosima Gadient; Copenhagen’s Heliot Emil, which was founded by brothers Victor and Julius Juul in 2016 as a menswear brand and has since expanded into womenswear; Lukhanyo Mdingi, based in South Africa, who designs menswear; Thomas Monet’s gender-fluid brand Cool TM, and womenswear designer Peter Do, who previously worked at Celine with Phoebe Philo and is based in New York City.
ANDAM Grand Prize candidates can be of any nationality, but must own or create a French company during the same year they receive the scholarship.
Bluemarble Paris, a Paris-based menswear brand founded by designer Anthony Alvarez, won the Pierre Bergé Prize, which focuses on young French companies and is endowed with €100,000.
A tremendous ovation went up when Álvarez accepted the Bergé Award, a particularly emotional moment for the designer as many of his friends and family had turned out to support him.
He also hoped to take advantage of the media and mentoring to “continue professionalizing [his] business.” But before that, it was time to let loose and party.
“There’s no pressure tonight, but we’ll be back tomorrow,” he said as friends and family gathered around him to celebrate his victory.
The other two contenders for that award were: Benjamin Benmoyal, who makes clothes from dead fabrics and recycled materials like VHS cassette tapes, and Boyarovskaya, created by designer Maria Boyarovskaya and fashion photographer Artem Kononenko.
Paris-based jewelery designer Dolly Cohen, who has created grills for celebrities including Rihanna, won the Accessories Prize, valued at €50,000.
The other two accessories nominated were: 13 09 SR, the brand co-founded by former Carven designer Serge Ruffieux that launched last year with flat shoes and jeweled eyeglasses, and London-based Romanian designer Ancuta Sarca, whose creations fuse clothing sports and haute couture.
Created in 1989 by Nathalie Dufour with the support of the French Ministry of Culture and DEFI, a body that promotes the development of the French fashion industry, and with the late Pierre Bergé as president, ANDAM has been a springboard for designers who would go on to achieve international recognition.
Previous winners include Viktor & Rolf, Christophe Lemaire, Jeremy Scott and Marine Serre. British menswear designer Bianca Saunders took home the 2021 award.
ANDAM, the French acronym for the National Association for the Development of Fashion Arts, is supported by major corporate sponsors, now including Balenciaga, Chanel, Chloé, Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent, Galeries Lafayette, Google, Hermès, Instagram, Kering, Lacoste, Longchamp, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, L’Oréal Paris, MyTheresa, OTB, Premiere Classe, Saint Laurent, Swarovski and Tomorrow.
The French Ministry of Culture and DEFI, a body that promotes the development of the French fashion industry, are also key historical public partners of ANDAM.
The executives of most of the sponsors are permanent members of the jury.
Many of this year’s invited jury members hailed from the Chanel orbit, including model and music producer Caroline de Maigret; twin sisters Lisa-Kaindé Diaz and Naomi Diaz of the musical duo Ibeyi; choreographer Blanca Li; rapper Abd al Malik; the model, DJ and singer Soo Joo Park, and Miren Arzalluz, director of the Palais Galliera fashion museum.
Pavlovsky praised the quality of the 13 profiles the jury examined, noting that it had been difficult to make a decision. Having members outside the fashion industry like the French writer Anne Berest, the Paris-based Cuban-Venezuelan musical duo Ibeyi or the rapper and director Abd Al Malik also generated “very good, very deep conversations: it’s a different way of seeing Fashion”. he said.
It will train the duo of Botter and Wun, approaching the fields that are needed by two brands that are “very different”, the latter being “still a small company with a lot of knowledge, a lot of creativity and a haute couture type of vision”, while the first is “more about energy [and] more established.”
An international jury and candidates who included only a French label “reflect[ed] the opening. Paris is a first international platform, quite open to the world,” she said.
“It was interesting to see that the creation has to take place in Paris but from people from everywhere,” he concluded.
SEE ALSO:
SS Daley wins the 2022 edition of the LVMH Prize for Young Designers
Following her win at ANDAM, Bianca Saunders lays the groundwork for growth
ANDAM Adds Another Award, New Digital Sponsors
Source: wwd.com