The Woolmark Company has revealed 42 2018/19 nominees for the International Woolmark Prize, of which 11 are from the U.S. region.
They are Albus Lumen, Area, Brandon Maxwell, Child’s New York, Cienne, Colovos, Deveaux New York, J.Kim, Linder, Orange Culture, and Willy Chavarria.
Many have long ties to the CFDA. Colovos designers Nicole and Michael Colovos have been longtime CFDA members and were runners-up to the first CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund in 2004 with their then-label Habitual. Maxwell took home the 2016 Swarovski Award for Womenswear. Area, designed by Beckett Fogg and Piotrek Panszczyk, was a finalist for the 2016 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund. Cienne, by Nicole Heim and Chelsea Healy, is a current finalist for the CFDA + Lexus Fashion* Initiative. Meanwhile, Deveaux New York, Linder, and Willy Chavarria have shown their collections at NYFW: Men’s.
More than 300 emerging fashion designers from around the world applied to the Woolmark Prize, and those who demonstrated “creativity, originality of design, innovation and brand recognition” were selected to present their brand to a panel of experts during semi-finals in July.
The nominees were determined by the 2018/19 International Woolmark Prize Advisory Council, which includes Tim Blanks of Business of Fashion, Jefferson Hack of Dazed Media, Diet Prada Co-Founders Tony Liu and Lindsey Schuyler, and Vogue Germany Editor-in-Chief Christiane Arp.
The semi-finals are set for July 5 in Hong Kong, July 10 in London, and July 12 in New York. During those semi-finals, talents will pitch a judging panel their ideas to secure investment for a capsule in Merino wool. From those pitches, 12 finalists will be selected to proceed to the finals. Each will receive $54,000 toward the capsule collection as well as mentoring and business training. The womenswear and menswear winners will winners will take home US$152,000, and one finalist will receive the Innovation Award and received $76,000.
“As the International Woolmark Prize continues to evolve, we have restructured our program to ensure emerging design talent receives the highest level of industry support and guidance,” said The Woolmark Company Managing Director Stuart McCullough. “This year we invited designers from all regions to apply to participate in the program and this generated an overwhelming number of applicants, from New York, London, and Tokyo through to Mexico, Russia and Nigeria. This reinforces our belief that the International Woolmark Prize has no geographical borders, that fashion has no boundaries and that Australian Merino wool will remain as relevant to fashion tomorrow as it does today.”
