Samuel Gui Yang Wins Hu Fashion Forward Prize – WWD

SHANGHAI — Samuel Gui Yang was the big winner Friday night at the Hu Fashion Forward Prize, an event celebrating the best and brightest of Chinese fashion, with Louis Shengtao Chen, Penultimate, Soft Mountains and Von Project also honored for their work.

Yang, a Central Saint Martins-educated designer known for his elegant and relaxed interpretation of traditional Chinese dress codes, walked away with the biggest prize money of 500,000 renminbi, or $77,600, while the other four awardees were awarded 150,000 renminbi, or $23,300 each.

The event is being hosted by influential Shanghai-based boutique Le Monde De SHC for the first time this year to support the next generation of fast-growing Chinese fashion talent. About 150 guests gathered for a gala dinner held at the historic Paramount ballroom in Shanghai to see the winners.

“I am very happy with this gift,” said Yang. “We are already working with LMDS. Eric Young was very supportive. He came to my showroom first and had a very right opinion. Then I realized that it was the right channel and the right audience that I wanted to approach. The audience has a certain level of fashion and a certain level of culture as well. For me it was a turning point — when LMDS came into existence and took my brand choice.”

Yang started the brand in 2015 and has presented 11 seasons, with the latest collection showing last week in Shanghai. “I always imagined a woman who has an Asian face but she is global, she has fluidity… someone who enjoys herself,” says the designer.

“I hope the prize can help give China a voice and can represent something fresh,” said Eric Young, founder of the LMDS and HFF Prize. He also expressed his hope to continue the event every year and expand its scope.

“Actually in the future, we don’t necessarily accept Chinese designers, but will look more at whether you are a brand that is relevant to the Chinese market,” Young said.

There were 13 finalists who took part in this year’s competition. While there are 15 possible spots, Windowsen and Soft Mountains were nominated in two categories. Unlike most other fashion prizes, HFF invites the public to vote for each category together with industry judges. Nearly 30,000 votes were received and they made up 15 percent of each designer’s score.

The New Forward Prize, which is awarded to a designer who presents their first collection in the past year, goes to Louis Shengtao Chen, a designer based in Chongqing, who has so far released two collections.

Julio Ng, judge and award-winning director at Seiya Nakamura 2.24, called Chen’s work “a universe worthy of being exposed to the international stage and making everyone’s life a little more poetic and glamorous.”

The China Forward Prize, which seeks an innovative combination of traditional Chinese aesthetics and contemporary design, was awarded to Xiang Gao of Penultimate, who previously trained under Raf Simons at Calvin Klein.

The ACC Forward Prize, which awards an accessory brand, goes to Soft Mountains, a contemporary jewelry label created by Long Ziwei, who is from Nuosu, an ethnic Chinese minority, and a graduate of the London College of Fashion.

“He really got into China’s inland tribes and in that area we have rich resources on clothing, embroidery and jewelry making techniques,” said Jojo Qian, another prize judge and founder of creative agency Pink Studio. “She is very close to the local workers and they are looking for new ways to make more contemporary jewelry that comes from the Miao ethnic group.”

The Sustainability Award sponsored by H&M was awarded to the Von Project and the Wushuiyuntai Miao embroidery workshop. Von Project was founded in 2019 by Wang Yunan, who partnered with local craftsmen in Guizhou to incorporate their dyeing, brocade and embroidery techniques into modern designs.

“We are fascinated by, for him, this is a lifestyle,” said Andreas Lowenstam, in charge of H&M China menswear BU. “What he does in terms of resources, production, close work, you can’t even say it’s a supplier because the scale is so small. He is very cutting edge and we know he will inspire the entire industry and it doesn’t take big business to be the inspiration.”

The evening started with a designer exhibition featuring works by various young Chinese designers that included the finalists but also other designers such as Victor Wang, Rui and Yueqi Qi. Dinner was punctuated with performances including an acrobatic troupe dressed in designer Rui, plate spinners, transvestites and singers singing Teresa Teng’s old songs.

The Trophy for the HFF Prize is designed to look like a dolphin without the Yangtze fin, an animal that migrates between the East China Sea and the Yangtze River, a metaphor for this group of designers traveling between China and this world.

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