Belgian designer Igor Dieryck wins fashion prize at Hyères Festival 2023

The 38th edition of the International Fashion, Accessories and Photography Festival ended on Sunday October 15 in Hyères, France, with the award ceremonies held at Villa Noailles. The fashion prize’s finalists presented collections that were extremely different, all of them highly accomplished and interesting and each with a clear vision, heralding a hotly contested competition.  The winner was Belgian designer Igor Dieryck, whose collection struck the ideal balance between product quality, playfulness, desirability and story-telling, earning Dieryck the Grand Prix Première Vision, awarded by the jury chaired by Charles de Vilmorin, and the city of Hyères award.

“I think that, in fashion, the product must please, and so must the story that goes with it,” said 24 year old Dieryck to FashionNetwork.com. With his very friendly, cheeky-lad air, Dieryck won over both the jury and the public, and was awarded also the 19M prize for craftsmanship excellence, introduced by Chanel in 2019. Dieryck’s ‘Yessir’ collection, inspired by the characters one might meet in a hotel lobby – the young designer has previously worked as a hotel receptionist – was so complete, varied and accomplished that it seemed ready to be marketed. From the cute little jackets with rounded lines, inspired by a hotel reception’s bell, to the very high-waisted trousers, and the new-look, oversize gathered jeans attached to the waist of a pair of formal trousers, all the collection’s items showed mature reflection, and featured discreet, amusing details that gave them an extra twist that made them fashionable.

“I borrowed some unmistakeable references from the hotel world, and I also realised the importance of uniforms. Uniforms have real power,” said Dieryck, who set himself the task of reinterpreting the codes typical of uniforms, refashioning them into more experimental creations. He also stood out for his well-realised accessories, like the thickly framed glasses inspired by champagne corks, the sneakers slipped into lace-up shoes, and the glove attached directly to a handbag.

“I think it’s important for clothes to be desirable and wearable. I take genuine pleasure in using a tailoring approach. I’m basically a maths buff and, after experimenting with materials, I work very much on a flat plane with various muslin fabrics,” said Dieryck, who was born in Arlon, not far from Luxembourg, and graduated from Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts. After a six-month internship at Acne Studios, he moved to Paris, where he joined Hermès as junior designer.

The festival, founded and directed by Jean-Pierre Blanc and chaired by Pascale Mussard, also recognised, in the fashion category, Swedish designer Petra Fagerstrom, 25, who won the Atelier des Matières prize, introduced last year by Chanel, and the Mercedes-Benz prize for sustainable development. For the latter, Fagerstrom hit upon the idea of recycling and transforming a parachute in a large white dress, a perfect fit for her ‘Flying Grandma’ collection.

Fagerstrom’s collection was dedicated to her grandmother, whose past as a Soviet parachutist she discovered perusing old photos. The collection featured military surplus items restyled into oversize outfits, and long pleated country-style dresses in printed nylon, the patterns giving glimpses of picture-postcard vistas of California, the promised land her grandmother dreamed of going to. Fagerstrom, a finalist last year at the ITS emerging designer competition in Trieste, Italy, has become more assured. She was born in Göteborg, and graduated from the Parsons academy in Paris. After internships at Acne Studios and Balenciaga, she launched her own label, backed by the Swedish Fashion Council.

In the accessories category, the jury chaired by jewellery designer Alan Crocetti awarded the main prize to Gabrielle Huguenot, born in Fribourg, Switzerland, and now based in Zurich, whose collection of jewellery, footwear and handbags was distinctive for its blend of glam, baroque and punk inspirations. Huguenot has created her own mythological world starting from an imaginary snake woman, who allowed her to escape into her dreams when she was a child. “My creations take people elsewhere,” said Huguenot, who is currently working to extend her range into perfume, with Swiss specialist Firmenich.

Huguenot’s imaginary figure, a cross between an evil queen and a character from a Fellini or Almodóvar film, donned disquieting, glittering jewel-like objects, like pumps with metallic stiletto heels, whose inner sole was studded with spiky tips. “I utilise plenty of metal and recovered hardware. I’ve set up my own methods for assembling my creations, and I wear them myself. The idea is doing what you can with what you have, rather than with what you’d want,” she said. Huguenot graduated last year from Geneva’s Haute Ecole d’Art et de Design (HEAD), and has done internships at Rabanne and Léa Peckre.

The Hermès accessories prize, sponsored by the luxury label since 2020, went to French designer Victor Salinier, another ITS finalist last year, who was also awarded the public’s prize. His latticework headscarf with attached leather straps ending in twin stirrups either side of the face, designed so that a child sitting on their mother’s shoulders could slip their feet in them, was undoubtedly one of the festival’s most original pieces.

The accessories prize jury gave a special mention to Hamburg-born German designer Christiane Schwambach, 41. After working for a long time as shop-window designer and decorator at the Secondella vintage store, Schwambach did a fashion course and started creating artistic handbag-objects, consisting of glass structures flamboyantly decorated with all sorts of ornaments, from scarves to hiking ropes, pearls, buttons, and more.

In the photography category, the jury chaired by Luis Alberto Rodriguez awarded the 7L prize to French-Swiss photographer Thaddé Comar. Souleymane Bachir Diaw, from Senegal, won the American Vintage prize, and Kin Coedel, from Hong Kong, won the public’s prize.

The Festival’s 38th edition showcased a high-quality, dynamic crop of emerging designers. Sustainability remained their top priority, but signs of apprehension could be spotted in their collections, like cage dresses, corsets, shackled bodies, and faces hiding behind hoods, helmets and large hats, perhaps mirroring the designers’ anxiety at the world around us.