At the Festival d’Hyères, Finnish Designer Jenny Hytönen Scoops the Grand Prize Première Vision and the Public Prize

Now in its 37th year, the Festival d’Hyères may be the doyen of international fashion competitions, but it remains the youngest at heart, a laid-back Riviera perch where emerging creatives from all over the world spend an adrenaline-fueled three days introducing their work to some of the most powerful players in the industry.

For the fashion and accessories finalists, rowdy runway presentations at the cavernous Hangar de la Mouture on Friday and Saturday evening, staged for about 900 guests per night, offer visibility that would be impossible to achieve in Paris, New York, London, or Milan. This year, they got a formidable assist from Instagram, now an official partner of the festival, which is offering this year’s winners mentoring on its platform and on Meta apps.

Up at the Villa Noailles, between a jam-packed opening concert by the Belgian pop star Axelle Red, a schedule-shuffling, traffic-stopping appearance by the recently appointed Minister of Culture Rima Abdul Malak, showroom presentations, an SRO masterclass by fashion jury president Glenn Martens, workshops hosted by the Chanel-owned embroiderer Atelier Montex, the roster forced some difficult choices all around.

Martens recalled that his first trip to Hyères was as the assistant to his friend Léa Peckre, who scooped the Grand Prize for fashion in 2011. A decade on, the creative director of Y/Project and Diesel was back as fashion jury president. “We were so happy to see such an eclectic group of designers, all from really different artistic worlds—I’m still processing,” he offered after a (really) long morning of presentations.

“Some you can envision moving directly into a top house, some are really creative and you want to watch them build their language and create their company. But what’s quite impressive is that everyone is extremely busy with environment-friendly codes, what fashion means today, what fashion will be tomorrow, and how we’re going to work. They all want to take better care of the planet, and they all have answers for it. They are all really focused on the future.”