June 7, 2023 |
Your a winner, baby!
Satoshi Kuwata, founder of Milan-based label Setchu, has been awarded this year’s LVMH Prize, taking home a cash prize of 400,000 euros.
In a ceremony at the Louis Vuitton Foundation this afternoon, with prize jury members Kim Jones, Maria Grazia Chiuri, Marc Jacobs and more in attendance, Setchu was awarded the gong by actress Gal Gadot.
“I feel like I’ve won the lottery. I’ve not digested it yet,” said Kuwata after his win. Following in the footsteps of previous winners Grace Wales Bonner, Thebe Magugu and S.S.Daley, Kuwata’s win marks 10 years since the LVMH Prize was launched by the Parisian luxury conglomerate.
Hailing from Kyoto, Japan, Kuwata studied at Central Saint Martins, where he would go on to work under the likes of Gareth Pugh, Givenchy and Golden Goose in design gigs across the globe. He launched Setchu in 2020, with the goal of fusing Eastern and Western design influences. His best selling product, for instance, is the Origami jacket, which resembles the silhouette of a Savile Row tailored jacket (Kuwata trained at Huntsman during his studies), but with the folds of a Kimono.
With the prize money, Kuwata plans to launch an e-commerce platform and wants to step into sneakers and bags. “I believe in myself that Setchu will be a heritage brand,” says Kuwata. “I want my brand to be one of the maisons part of the [LVMH group].”
This year’s Karl Lagerfeld Special Jury Prize was awarded to runners up Luca Magliano of Italian label Magliano, and Ukranian brand Bettter, headed up by Julie Pelipas, who’s now based in the UK following the Russian invasion.
“This is the right time [to grow Bettter] in terms of scalability and building [the brand] as a global system where we will be able to source, upcycle and sell locally,” says Pelipas of her upcycling tailoring label. “I want to become someone who gives a new view on men’s wardrobes,” adds Magliano, who champions Italian craft and the country’s working class through his collections. Both designers will be awarded 200,000 euros each and a year of mentoring from LVMH.
Photography courtesy of LVMH Prize.
