Marine Serre, Julien Dossena, and Viktor & Rolf Are Among the Designers Leading the New Jury Format
The International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Accessories — Hyères, will be without presidents in its 2025 edition. Festival founder Jean-Pierre Blanc announced on Wednesday, during Paris Couture Week, that the festival will mark its 40th edition with juries made up only of designers and photographers.
“It was difficult to choose one personality to illustrate 40 years of the festival. The alternative that came to me was picking plenty of well-known people, as a gift from the festival to attendees and young designers,” said Blanc. The festival, started in 1985 by a group of youthful idealists, is recognized as a significant launch pad for designers.
Blanc expressed hopes for the festival’s continued contribution to creativity and emerging creation beyond its 40 years. This sentiment was supported by this year’s fashion jury members Viktor Horsting, Rolf Snoeren, Rabanne’s creative director Julien Dossena, Louis-Gabriel Nouchi, Marine Serre and others who, early in their careers, had been recipients of the festival’s awards.
These jury members will be on a quest for their 2025 successors, alongside Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Christelle Kocher of Koché, Lacoste’s creative director Pelagia Kolotouros, Ami’s Alexandre Mattiussi, Ludovic de Saint Sernin, and Grace Wales Bonner. Blanc emphasized retaining the festival’s carte blanche principle for selections despite the unprecedented arrangement. He suggested discussions might take longer but was confident about the resulting extraordinary prizes.
Fashion contestants for the prizes hail from Switzerland, Poland, Chile, Finland, China, Germany, Spain, France, Austria, and Lebanon. Fashion accessories will be judged by prominent creators such as Christian Louboutin, Pierre Hardy, Hermès’ creative director for fine jewelry, London-based milliner Philip Treacy, among others. Accessory finalists originate from France, Germany, Switzerland, Syria and Honduras.
The photography finalists will present their work to top-tier image-makers such as Paolo Roversi, Tim Walker, Inez van Lamsweerde, Vinoodh Matadin and others. Sølve Sundsbø, a past winner, and Luis Alberto Rodriguez, the winner at the festival’s 32nd edition, will join them. Competing for the photography prize are entrants from Taiwan, India, Spain, France, Senegal, the Netherlands.
Breaking away from tradition, the 2024 winners will not be part of the jury determining their successors. Instead, their work will be displayed through exhibitions at the Villa Noailles during the October festival. A novel addition this year is the creation of a Supima Prize, backed by the cotton organization, a festival partner since 2018. The best among the finalists, each of whom will create an entry using the American-grown Supima cotton fiber, will earn fabric support for their next collection, in addition to a sponsored trip to the forthcoming Supima Design Lab in New York City this November.
Emilie Hammen of the Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and the Institut Français de la Mode will curate a retrospective exhibition showcasing the festival’s four decades. This will replace the usual spotlight on the jury presidents. Blanc, who referred to the 2025 milestone as his finale while committing to at least one more year, vowed a treasure trove of contemporary fashion history at Hyères. The festive period begins in April with an exhibition at a prominent Paris-based fashion museum and wraps up with an event featuring Karl Lagerfeld’s iconic images of Villa Noailles in November.
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