Loro Piana 2024 Knit Design Award Rewards École Duperré Paris Students

MILAN — The eighth edition of the Loro Piana Knit Design Award was all about reinvention, with knights’ armor turned into enveloping cashmere knits.

In the year that marks the quiet luxury brand’s centenary, the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton-owned Loro Piana challenged applicants with the theme of “Fast Forward Heritage,” hinged on reinterpreting the “art of knitwear,” as the brand’s chief executive officer Damien Bertrand put it on Friday morning here.

“We want more and more to bring knitwear [forward], from a necessity, a technicality to bringing nobility, innovation and creativity to this métier, which we love and which is at the heart of Loro Piana,” Bertrand said before bestowing the award.

“The Knitwear Design Award is an extremely important initiative fostering the next generation of talents and underlines the importance of craftsmanship, innovation and creativity,” he said.

“You guys have a lot of passion and technical progress at the heart of your approach,” he told contestants. “These are values and ideals that we champion also at Loro Piana. We’ve always wished to reward excellence in craftsmanship, technical innovation and facilitate the transmission of Loro Piana’s unique skills, and applied artisanal excellence to the next generation.”

Students Pierre Sauvageot and Björn Backes from the École Duperré Paris, tutored by Prof. François-Xavier Herody, won the award — a gleaming silver ribbon-like trophy — for their project.

Titled “Cavalieri, A History of Innovation,” it reinterpreted the armor of ancient knights with the use of Loro Piana cashmere yarns blended with iron threads, maintaining softness while adding structure, thus combining the natural fiber’s legacy with modernity in using the metal thread and the knitted armor’s contemporary design.

The winners were short-listed from a panel of eight applicants hailing from international fashion and designs schools such as Italy’s Accademia Costume e Moda; the Fashion Institute of Technology; the Institut Français de la Mode, and Tokyo’s Bunka Fashion College, among others.

Since last October when short-listed applicants were provided with the theme, the contest’s participating students have been able to visit Loro Piana factories to discover production processes, and stores to delve into the Italian luxury brand’s heritage.

The winners will receive a scholarship from Loro Piana, a contract to work for the company and the opportunity to develop their samples to turn them into viable garments with help from the house’s research and development team. The final products will be showcased at the upcoming edition of textile trade show Pitti Filati, to be held in Florence from June 25 to 27.

The jury of this year’s edition included Bertrand in addition to Loro Piana executives Elvira Grimaldi, human resources director; Alessandra Varianini, product development and collection merchandising director; Sabine De Marigny, men’s and women’s knitwear and accessories designer; Lucia De Cet, head of yarns R&D, as well as Sara Sozzani Maino, creative director of Fondazione Sozzani and international new talent and brands ambassador; Pauline Dujancourt, founder and creative director of the namesake fashion brand, and Anna Dello Russo, among others.

The Loro Piana Knit Design Award was established in 2016 to reward talented students from leading design schools around the world who have been tasked with infusing innovation into the brand’s signature yarns, which include, among others, the Cashmere 2/27, Coarsehair, Supercashmere, registered Royal, Wish and Clan textiles, Sopravisso and Equilibrio.