September 4, 2026 |
Julie Kegels has won the 13th LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers, announced this afternoon at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. Presented with the award by Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence, the Belgian designer takes home a €400,000 endowment alongside a year of mentorship from teams within LVMH.
Kegels, 27, launched her eponymous Antwerp-based womenswear label in 2024, shortly after graduating from the city’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and has moved quickly since. She showed off-schedule in Paris in February 2025 with a collection titled 50/50, before joining the official Paris Fashion Week calendar that September for the SS26 season. Four collections in, her work is built on the belief that one woman can hold many identities, sometimes within the same day – a philosophy that plays out in sculptural silhouettes, artisanal technique and clothes drawing as readily on domestic spaces and personal memory as anything more rarefied. The woman she designs for, as she describes her, is full of contradictions: someone who doesn’t take life too seriously and finds a kind of freedom in that.
“I still can’t believe it, actually,” says Kegels. “There are such talented finalists here – they’re amazing, and I couldn’t believe it was me.” On what the win means: “I’m proud. We work with a lot of young, passionate people who really give way more time and energy than the brand can actually afford.”
The Karl Lagerfeld Special Jury Prize, awarded to a runner-up whose work shows exceptional promise, went to Zane Li of Lii, presented by Priyanka Chopra. Born in Chongqing and based in New York, Li founded the label straight out of the Fashion Institute of Technology in 2023, debuting for AW24 and producing six collections since, his work lands where sportswear meets couture, remaining minimalist but closely considered. “It feels surreal,” says Li. “I feel like I’m in a really long jet-lag dream and I don’t ever want to wake up.”
The Savoir-Faire Prize, introduced in 2024 to recognise craftsmanship, technical innovation and sustainability, went to Anil Padia of Yoshita 1967. An artisan-led house working between Nairobi and Paris, it draws on Padia’s Kenyan-Indian lineage and is built around slow production and long-term collaboration with women-led craft communities. Padia is the first Kenyan finalist in the prize’s history. “You won a prize, one of the most prestigious in the world,” he says. “It adds to your conviction.”
Each runner-up receives €200,000 and a year of mentorship. On what the funding will change, the three diverge. “I don’t want to grow too fast, or do things I would regret,” says Kegels. “The only thing I’m thinking would be amazing is to have an extra person in the team – that would really be a dream.” Li has categories in mind: “Accessories, different fabrications, full-fashion knits. We didn’t have the budget to do that before.” Padia is thinking about craft capacity. “We want to go into hand-knitting, and [develop with] the technicians around that. [There’s] a lot of infrastructure in our craft.”
“Our approach to production, and our relationships with the artisans we work with,” says Padia, on what he wants to protect as the brand scales. “A big part of our values is protecting the artisans.” For Li, the question is the sprawl of the job itself. “It’s more than being a sewer, more than a pattern maker. You need to be a publicist, an interior designer, a content creator, a graphic designer.” Kegels, meanwhile, returns to the garments. “It’s always just about clothes. You always talk and explain your work, but at the end you look at the clothes and that’s it. It doesn’t have to be too complicated – an easy, simple thing, and a detail that attracts you.”
Founded by Delphine Arnault in 2013, the LVMH Prize has become the industry’s most dependable launchpad for the next generation of designers, with past winners including Grace Wales Bonner, Marine Serre, Nensi Dojaka, Ellen Hodakova Larsson and, last year, Soshi Otsuki. This year’s jury welcomed five new members: Loewe‘s Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, Pucci‘s Camille Miceli, Celine‘s Michael Rider and Louis Vuitton chairman and CEO Pietro Beccari.
From Antwerp to New York and Paris, the 2026 winners represent three distinct approaches to contemporary fashion – sculptural womenswear, athletic codes handled with couture precision, and craft rooted in cultural heritage. These are three new names to watch as they step into the next chapter.
Photography courtesy of LVMH Prize.
