LVMH announces finalists for Young Fashion Designer Prize

After flying to Paris to show their collections to the expert panel of judges during Paris

Fashion Week, the finalists for the LVMH Young Fashion Designer Prize have been revealed.

The final designers competing for the award, which also comes with a 300,000 euro grant a year of mentoring are as follows: Chris Gelinas, Gabriele Colangelo, Shayne Oliver, Simon Porte, sister Nikita and Tina Sutradhar, Thomas Tait, Tillmann Lauterbach, Tim Coppens, Simone Rocha, Erin Beatty and Max Osterweis, Vika Gazinskaya and Julien Dossena.

The finalists include twelve young designers, instead of the originally planned ten. "There was a draw between four of the designers, and as a result, we have decided to proceed with twelve finalists, instead of the original ten," explained Delphine Arnault, who first thought up the designer award.

The expert panel, which composed of 40 leading industry professionals ranging from retail, to media to hair and makeup artists, cast their votes for their 10 favourites from the 30 semi-finalists. However, there was a four-way tie between some of the applicants, which lead to the number of finalists going up to twelve.

The finalists will come together on May 28 to meet with the panel of eight judges, including Karl Lagerfeld, Marc Jacobs, Raf Simons and Nicolas Ghesquiére and Pierre-Yves Roussel, Jean-Paul Claverie and Delphine Arnault to select the winner.

A total of 1,221 designers applied for the award, along with 600 graduate students, who applied online to win one of three 10,000 euro scholarships and one-year internship in a LVMH fashion house post studies. The winners are set to be announced on May 28, along with the young designer award.