Steven Stokey Daley wins the LVMH Prize 2022

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jun 2, 2022

And the winner of the LVMH Prize 2022 is: Steven Stokey Daley of S.S. Daley - chosen Thursday by a jury of major designers from a field of eight finalists to receive the annual award for young talent, worth €300,000.

While the €150,000 Karl Lagerfeld Prize 2022 was split between two designers - American Eli Russell Linnetz of the brand Erl and Idris Balogun, a Savile Row-trained tailor who founded the Winnie New York brand.
 
“It feels like I just won the Oscar,” said Liverpool-born Daley, receiving his award from actress Cate Blanchett.

All three young designers received their awards in an audience inside the Louis Vuitton Foundation in western Paris. Olympic freestyle gold medalist Eileen Gu presented Linnetz and Balogun with their prizes.
 
“The prize has become very important to us. Because youth is the future of creation. And I like to look 10 years ahead,” beamed LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault inside the soaring art foundation, located in the Bois de Boulogne. 
 
The winner was selected from a jury composed of seven senior LVMH designers - Jonathan Anderson, Maria Grazia Chiuri, Nicolas Ghesquière, Kim Jones, Stella McCartney, Silvia Venturini Fendi, Nigo, the creative director of Kenzo – along with Delphine Arnault, Jean-Paul Claverie and Sidney Toledano.

Prior to that, in the LVMH Prize semi-final, a jury composed of 77 industry experts judged the 20 semi-finalists in Paris in early March, whittling down their number to eight finalists. For the second year in a row, the public was also allowed to vote, as over 62,000 people selected their favourite candidate online.
 
The other five finalists were: Knwls, by British designer Charlotte Knowles and Canadian colleague Alexander Arsenault; Irish designer Róisín Pierce; Anglo-Nigerian designer Iniye Tokyo James, with the Tokyo James label; Ashlyn, by South Korean designer Ashlynn Park; and RyunosukeOkazaki by Japanese designer Ryunosuke Okazaki.
 
Besides the prize money, winning the prize guarantees enormous media attention, and entails practically automatic orders by fashion-forward boutiques internationally. But it is no guarantee of overnight success.
 
Some previous winners like Grace Wales Bonner (2016), Marine Serre (2017) or Thebe Magugu (2019) have gone on to carve out prestigious careers, building high-profile indie brands. Others have slipped off the mainstream radar like Thomas Tait (debut winner in 2014) or Doublet by Masayuki Ino (2018).
 
Ironically, it is often non-winning finalists like Jonathan Anderson, Virgil Abloh or Simone Rocha who have the most meteoric careers subsequently.