LVMH Prize 2019 Goes to Thebe Magugu

The LVMH Prize, fashion’s most coveted designer prize which comes with a grant of 300,000 euros, has been awarded to 26-year-old designer Thebe Magugu from Johannesburg, South Africa.

The designer was one of 5,000 applicants who made the top eight finalist including Anrealage, Bethany Williams, Bode, Hed Mayner, Kenneth Ize, Phipps, and Stefan Cooke.

Originally from the small town of Kimberley, Magugu moved to Johannesburg to study fashion design, fashion photography, and fashion media from LISOF. After winning best graduate collection, he interned and worked for a selection of designers fashion institutions and retailers. After 2 years, he began his namesake label, Thebe Magugu – a South African fashion brand primarily operating within the field of women’s ready to wear.

Together with our pillar values of quality, novelty, and culture, we constantly seek new ways of presenting women with clothing that both complies with and enhances the everyday. Sleek, forward-looking design intersects with motifs from our continent’s storied past, providing smart, multifaceted clothes as valuable as their woman.
– Thebe Magugu

The young fashion designers‘ competition is open to designers from every country who have produced at least two collections and who are under 40.

To help them develop their creative work, LVMH gives the winners a grant of 300,000 euros and a personalized technical and financial support from the Group for a 12-month period following the LVMH Prize award. This support covers all the areas of expertise that are critical to a young fashion brand (intellectual property, sourcing, production, and distribution, image and advertising, marketing etc.)