PARIS — There will be no presidents at the 2025 edition of the International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Accessories — Hyères, running from Oct. 16 to 19.
The festival’s founder Jean-Pierre Blanc revealed juries composed of only designers and photographers to mark the 40th edition of the talent competition on Wednesday at the Institut du Monde Arabe during Paris Couture Week.
“It was difficult to choose one personality to illustrate 40 years of the festival,” he told WWD in an exclusive interview. “The alternative that came to me was picking plenty of well-known people, as a gift from the festival to attendees and young designers.”
Founded in 1985 by “a band of young gentle dreamers,” the fashion competition is considered a major launchpad for designers.
“I hope it will have served a purpose for 40 years and that it will continue to be in service of creativity and emerging creation for, who knows, another 40,” Blanc continued.
And it’s not this year’s fashion jury members Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren, best known as Viktor & Rolf, Rabanne creative director Julien Dossena, Louis-Gabriel Nouchi and Marine Serre who will contradict him, as they all won gongs at the festival early in their careers.
In their quest to find their 2025 successor, they will be joined by 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.
Such a lineup is unknown territory for the festival, but Blanc was adamant not to deviate from the carte blanche principle for selections. “It might be a bit more complex because a jury president usually brings a form of direction,” he said. “Discussions could take a little longer, but I am sure this will give birth to extraordinary prizes.”
Competing for the fashion prizes are Noah Almonte (Switzerland), Layla Al Tawaya (Poland), Lucas Emilio Brunner (Switzerland and Chile), Idaliina Friman (Finland), Xinyi He (China), Sofia Hermens Fernandez (Germany and Spain), Adrien Michel (France), Dennis Sanders (Germany), Vanessa Schreiner (Austria) and Youssef Zogheib (Lebanon).
To determine the accessories winners of the year, Blanc invited Christian Louboutin; Pierre Hardy, Hermès’ creative director for fine jewelry; London-based milliner Philip Treacy; accessories designer Stéphanie D’Heygère; jewelers Charlotte Chesnais and Elie Top; Priscilla Royer, creative director of Chanel-owned milliner Maison Michel; Florence Tétier, who was previously creative director of Jean Paul Gaultier fashion; viral Barcelona-based jewelry label La Manso, and footwear designer Olivier Jault, who has consulted for the likes of Gaultier, Repetto and J.M. Weston.
Accessories finalists are Antoine and Julien Blanchard (fashion accessories, France), Alyssa Cartaut (shoes, France), Alix Caumont (fashion accessories, France) Amaury Darras (fashion accessories, France), Taskin Goec (eyewear, Germany), Coline Gros (jewelry, Switzerland), Kays Masood (jewelry, Syria), Florentin Mathon (shoes, France), Luisa Olivera López (jewelry, Honduras) and Julien Simar (bags and eyewear, France).
For photography, the finalists will present their work to image-makers Paolo Roversi, Tim Walker, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin — known in the industry simply as Inez and Vinoodh — Karim Sadli, Malick Bodian, Pierre Debusschere and Tess Petronio.
Alongside them will be Sølve Sundsbø, who won in 1999, and Dominican American photographer and dancer Luis Alberto Rodriguez, a winner at the 32nd edition of the festival.
Selected for the photography competition are Adam Han-Chun Lin (Taiwan), Shubham Lodha (India), Gabriel Mrabi (Spain), Yama Ndiaye (France and Senegal), Noémie Ninot (France and the Netherlands), and Mathilde Favel, Zen Lefort, Julie Joubert, Laura Pelissier and Shanna Warocquier (all from France).
In a departure from tradition, the winners of the 2024 edition will not be sitting on the jury to determine their successors, but will showcase their work through exhibitions at the Villa Noailles during the festival in October.
Another novelty revealed at the event in Paris was the creation of a Supima Prize, supported by the cotton organization that has been a partner of the festival since 2018. Each of the finalists will be creating an entry using the American-grown Supima cotton fiber.
The best of the crop will walk away with fabric support for their next collection and a sponsored trip to attend the upcoming Supima Design Lab, slated for November in New York City.
While details for October are still under wraps, there will be a retrospective exhibition on the festival’s four decades, curated by a team led by Emilie Hammen, professor at the Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and the Institut Français de la Mode. It will take the place of the spotlight usually focused on jury presidents.
Blanc promised “a gold mine for the contemporary history of fashion in Hyères,” tapping into thousands of artefacts that run from the first images of John Galliano in Hyères to Karl Lagerfeld’s photographs marking the festival’s 30th anniversary.
Celebrations will kick off in April with an exhibition with a major Paris-based fashion museum and continue with showcases in windows in the Palais-Royal gardens and ballet-centric events with the Théâtre National de la Danse Chaillot, with which a three-year partnership starts this year. Events will culminate with the festival in October and a November event around Lagerfeld’s seminal images of Villa Noailles.
Blanc, who jokingly referred the 2025 milestone as his grand finale, promised to stay “at least one more year” as work continues to cement the festival’s future.
