Hyères Festival Will Highlight Lesage’s Centenary, Gears Up for 40th Anniversary in 2025
PARIS — With 30 days left until the 39th edition of the International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Accessories, Hyères, its founder Jean-Pierre Blanc and president Pascale Mussard lifted the veil on this year’s happenings.
Lesage, which celebrates its centenary this year, will take pride of place during the prestigious four-day event dedicated to young designers and photographers.
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There will be an exhibition of silhouettes created over the years for the fashion contest with the Chanel-owned embroiderer, in a scenography by Anaïs Hervé and Arthur Ristor, who won the visual merchandising prize supported by the French luxury brand at the Design Parade competition in Toulon.
This year’s fashion finalists will also show looks created in a three-way project with Lesage and another specialized crafts atelier under Chanel’s métiers d’art umbrella.
As previously reported, Nicolas Di Felice, artistic director of Courrèges, is heading the 2024 fashion jury. Finnish designer Achilles Ion Gabriel, creative director of the Spanish footwear label Camper, its youthful experimental range Camperlab and his eponymous brand, leads the accessories jury, while Coco Capitán leads the one for photography.
A few changes in the composition of the jury were flagged, with actress Hari Nef and Irish singer-songwriter Róisín Murphy no longer able to take part for fashion and photography respectively due to scheduling conflicts.
The prizes and their purse monies will stay in line with last year’s edition.
While Première Vision will be the name partner of the main fashion prize for the final time, five fashion candidates will receive the support of Teintures de France, a specialist in dyeing and fabric treatments for their entries.
Galeries Lafayette also confirmed its continued support of the emerging talent showcase, although it will no longer invite the grand fashion prize winner to create a capsule to be sold in the department store.
Another new partner is accessories incubator Au-delà du Cuir, or ADC, which will accompany the accessories prize winner for a year through mentoring and showroom services.
The theme of the 23nd edition of the Rencontres Internationales de la Mode, by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, will be fashion as a connector. The three jury presidents will also hold master classes, as is tradition.
Exhibitions kicking off during the festival and continuing into early 2025 will include the collections of this year’s finalists, the collaborations of 2023 winners Igor Dieryck and Gabrielle Huguenot, as well as photography exhibitions.
Gabriel Figueiredo’s label De Pino and visual artist Rémi Calmont will also present a joint installation they promised would be “monumental and wacky.”
Marvin Mtoumo, who won the now-defunct Chloé Prize at the 2020 edition, will exhibit the result of his summer-long residency at Villa Noailles at the nearby restored Château Saint-Pierre.
But for Blanc, the festival is not a “one and done” encounter with fresh talent.
In another move meant to broaden the perspectives of emerging brands that have participated in the festival, a showroom that he hopes will become the “Matter and Shape of fashion” will make its debut this season with partner WSN and its Première Classe trade show.
There will also be a spotlight on brands from the region, to highlight a growing ecosystem that include grassroots successes like American Vintage, a long-standing sponsor of the photography prize, and contemporary label Molly Bracken.
The festival founder was also keen to tease the happenings of the 40th edition of the festival, which was founded in 1985 by “a band of young gentle dreamers.”
Among the highlights will be a three-year partnership with Paris-based Théâtre National de la Danse Chaillot that will kick off in 2025.
The year will also mark the 30th anniversary of a fashion editorial shot by Karl Lagerfeld at the Villa Noailles which went on to become an out-of-print and highly sought after “Villa Noailles, Été 1995” book published by Steidl.
Celebrations will kick off in April with an exhibition with a major Paris-based fashion museum, continue with showcases in windows in the Palais-Royal gardens and ballet-centric events with the dance center and culminate with the 2025 festival and a November event around Lagerfeld’s seminal images of Villa Noailles.
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