Julie Kegels wins the LVMH Prize

This announcement brings to an end several months of anticipation. This afternoon, the winners of the LVMH Prize, the Karl Lagerfeld Prize, and the Savoir-Faire Prize were revealed before a large audience and this year’s jury, which included Jonathan Anderson, Maria Grazia Chiuri, Marc Jacobs, Stella McCartney, Nigo, Michael Rider, and Delphine Arnault. The three designers distinguished themselves from a field of nine finalists, whose names were announced last April.

The 2026 LVMH Prize was awarded to Belgian designer Julie Kegels for her work with her eponymous label, founded in 2024. Her creative vision centres on the many facets of the female wardrobe, reflecting the diverse identities of women.

Julie Kegels is noted for sculptural silhouettes, artisanal techniques, and sustainable materials, drawing inspiration from personal memories, domestic spaces, and modern life. Trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp, she learned alongside Pieter Mulier and Meryll Rogge. The young designer receives €400,000 and a year of personalised mentoring from LVMH’s in-house teams.

This afternoon, the LVMH Foundation also crowned Zane Li and his label LII the winners of the Karl Lagerfeld Prize. A 2023 graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology (New York), the young Chinese designer founded his brand shortly after finishing his studies and unveiled his first collection for the Autumn/Winter 2024 season.

Based in New York, he “explores the meeting point between sport and haute couture, reinterpreting bold shapes and silhouettes with richly textured materials and a modern colour palette,” according to the LVMH Prize. Zane Li receives €200,000 and a one-year mentoring programme from the group to support the growth of his brand.

Finally, Indo-Kenyan designer Anil Padia has won the Savoir-Faire Prize for his label Yoshita 1967, a standard-bearer for artisanal crochet, a craft widely practised by women in Kenya. Through his pieces, the designer “explores the themes of identity, memory, and taboo,” using handcraft as “a language to connect the past with the present, whilst supporting the communities behind these creations.”

With this prize, Anil Padia receives a €200,000 grant and a year of mentoring focused on knowledge transmission, the preservation of technical skills, and the environmentally responsible development of collections.