LVMH reveals Young Fashion Designer Prize semi-finalists

Delphine Arnault, daughter of fashion tycoon and CEO of LVMH Bernard Arnault,

reveals that it was difficult to choose the short listed 30 semi-finalists for the LVMH Young Fashion Designer Prize.

With a total of 1,221 young applicants from all over the world vying for the chance to win the 300,000 euro grand and year of mentoring, it's not hard to see why. "I was really amazed at the number of applicants and the quality of the dossiers we received," commented Arnault to WWD, who was the brain child behind the designer competition.

The task of whittling down the applicants to 30 was left up to an internal committee, comprised of LVMH employees. The 30 semi-finalist comes from a wide range of countries and include the likes of designers such as Meadham Kirchhoff, Simone Rocha, Thomas Tait and J JS Lee, who are preparing to show their collections at London Fashion Week.

Other young designers who made it through the first round of selection and will be showing their collections on February 26 and 27 during Paris Fashion Week include; Anna October, Julia Paskal, Kathleen Kay, Vika Gazinskaya, Christopher Peters, Bruno Pieters, Tim Coppens, Julien Dossena, Tillmann Lauterbach, Yang Li, Christopher Shannon, Craig Green, Minju Kim, Lena Lumelsky and Hellen van Rees.

It will then be up to the panel of 40 industry experts to narrow down the selection to 10 finalists. Arnault added that each expert will be able to vote for their favorite designer and the 10 with the most votes will be able to move on to the final selection round.

"I can't wait to meet them and get to know them," said Arnault, who is looking forward to meet the semi-finalists in person. "It's really an adventure. You have to be really audacious," added Arnault. The 10 finalist will be invited to make a 20 minute presentation of their collection to the jury, which consists of number of successful designers such as Karl Lagerfeld, Marc Jacobs, Nicolas Ghesquière, Raf Simons, and Phoebe Philo.