The 2025 Hyères Festival pays tribute to Lucas Emilio Brunner

The 40th Hyères International Fashion, Photography and Accessories Festival concluded on Saturday with an awards ceremony at Villa Noailles that crowned Swiss-Chilean designer Lucas Emilio Brunner.

Despite a serious budget crisis, the event, made possible thanks to the strong support of public institutions and private partners, was a success. Even in a streamlined three-day format, it attracted large crowds and industry professionals.

“It was a great opportunity to bring young creativity back to the fore. All the human resources directors of the big fashion houses were present,” said enthusiastic Pascale Mussard, president of the Villa Noailles art center, which organizes the event.

The fashion competition set a particularly high bar, with accomplished, finely executed collections (many market-ready) supported by coherent storytelling. This year, young designers especially engaged with war themes and issues related to masculinity and femininity. It could be said that a touch of madness was missing, with numerous overly familiar proposals and silhouettes that seemed to take us back to the past, full of ruffles and ruching. With a few exceptions, the men's silhouettes were noticeably more creative.

Brunner's universe exemplified this and earned him the Fashion Jury Grand Prize. The 26-year-old Swiss designer of Chilean origin, a 2022 graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Visuels de La Cambre in Brussels, explored “the dissection of balloons and the study of instrument stands to create an identifiable men's wardrobe, inspired by the Ivy League style of the 1960s.”

He deconstructs the party balloon and all its components, ingeniously adapting principles derived from his in-depth research to his garments. The result: an ingenious and fun collection full of fresh ideas.

It opened with a deliberately fragile “image” look: a tartan jacket formed from a multitude of small inflated balloons. She then repeated her shape, filling a series of mini white and blue striped poplin tubes with batting. Next, she touched up the balloon knot and used it to fasten a blue latex trench coat in the front, a pair of pants on the side, or a draped leather blouse tied, balloon style, over one shoulder.

The same knot replaced the ribbon on the back of an oval, balloon-shaped beret. Finally, a T-shirt covered in furry fringe was made from a series of deflated balloons. With his pop-influenced pieces, his innovative spirit and this prestigious award, the young designer, who has worked with Germanier, Palomo Spain and Maison Margiela, and who lives and works in Geneva, is clearly destined for success.

Outerwear and leather

The competition also recognized the French designer Adrien Michel (28) in the Fashion category, awarding him the “le19M Métiers d'art” prize, presented by Chanel in 2019. Originally from the Vosges Mountains, the designer, also a graduate of La Cambre, developed a collection at the intersection between “technical mountain sportswear and a contemporary men's wardrobe”, proposing new constructions and proportions with hybrid designs. outerwear that combines a trench coat and a down jacket, and two-in-one lumberjack shirts.

The “L'Atelier des Matières” award, the other award promoted by Chanel, one of the main partners of the festival, went to Layla Al Tawaya (24), of Polish and Palestinian origin, recently graduated from Parsons Paris, where she lives and works. He stood out for his craftsmanship, working leather like lace in a unisex men's collection that fuses two opposite universes: the masculinity of the perfect and the femininity of the tutu, with a cascade of tulle ruffles, pleats, gatherings, large jabots and gathered or zippered cuffs for a baroque and rococo wardrobe.

Lebanese designer Youssef Zogheib (23), who also studied at Parsons Paris, won the Hyères Audience Award with a unisex collection inspired “by cross-dressing soldiers during the Second World War.”

His well-cut pieces, such as long, flared military coats that unfolded in fluid, floating volumes, conquered both the public and professionals.

Among the novelties of the contest was the Supima Prize. The American association responsible for promoting high-quality cotton grown mainly in the United States, which has supported the Hyères Festival for eight years, presented its own award this year, offering the winner an allocation of fabric to produce their collection. Swiss designer Noah Almonte (29) took the award with graphic and clean-lined proposals ranging from a large Balenciaga-style plaid dress to wide-brimmed hats and bolero jackets for feminine and elegant looks.

American visibility

The icing on the cake is that on November 5, Supima will bring its winner and the other nine finalists in the fashion category to New York, along with Hugo Lucchino, new CEO of Villa Noailles, to attend its Supima Design Lab competition, giving international visibility to the Hyères event and its creative talents.

As for accessories, the Grand Jury Prize went to 28-year-old Frenchman Amaury Darras for his remarkable woodworking skills. Originally from Châteauneuf-sur-Loire, in the Loiret region, he trained at the École Boulle in Paris. After eight years as a cabinetmaker in Orléans, he moved to Marseille, where in 2023 he opened Atelier Vandael with 11 other visual artists.

“I have been working on the human body for three years, using wood and portable sculptures. I have invented my own three-dimensional marquetry technique,” he explained while showing FashionNetwork.com his work.

These include a corset, clogs and a bag, made from various woods such as olive, Rio rosewood and walnut knots. For her part, the talented Luisa Olivera (27), from San Pedro Sula in Honduras, who came to France in 2017 to study at the IFM and the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, received the Hermès Accessories Award, demonstrating her versatility. She wowed the public with incredibly lightweight modular jewelry in the shape of fabric flowers with a shiny finish that open and close.

French designer Alyssa Cartaut (24), a graduate of École Duperré and a master's degree from La Cambre, won the People's Choice Award for a highly inventive shoe collection developed around the theme of cushions, creating super-soft lambskin mules equipped with mini cushions and other cushions, which she describes as “foot spaces.” Pieces that make you want to put them on immediately.

In photography, the jury awarded the 7L Grand Prize to the French photographer Noémie Ninot and a special mention to her compatriot Julie Joubert. The Spanish-Moroccan Gabriel Mrabi won the American Vintage award.