Article Summary: Jennifer Lawrence read her name out at the Fondation Louis Vuitton on Friday, and Julie Kegels became the first Belgian to win the LVMH Prize. She takes €400,000 and a year of mentorship, two years after graduating from Antwerp. Zane Li and Anil Padia took the other two awards.
Two years ago Julie Kegels was still a recent graduate with no label. On Friday night Jennifer Lawrence read her name out at the Fondation Louis Vuitton. The Julie Kegels LVMH Prize 2026 win arrives faster than almost any in the award’s history.
Belgian designer Julie Kegels won the 2026 LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers on Friday, September 4. The ceremony was held at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. The award carries a 400,000-euro endowment and a year of mentorship from LVMH teams. Zane Li of Lii took the Karl Lagerfeld Prize, and Anil Padia of Yoshita 1967 won the Savoir-Faire Prize.
Who Won the 2026 LVMH Prize?
Julie Kegels, and she is the first Belgian ever to do it. Jennifer Lawrence, a Dior ambassador, announced the result at the Fondation Louis Vuitton on Friday evening.
“I’m speechless,” Kegels said on stage, before thanking almost every member of her team by name. She is 27, and she launched the label only in 2024.
That makes her the thirteenth winner in the prize’s history, and the Julie Kegels LVMH Prize 2026 result is the fastest ascent in several editions. The LVMH Prize 2026 winner beat eight other finalists chosen from more than 2,400 applicants.
Key Takeaways
- Julie Kegels won the 2026 LVMH Prize on September 4, taking 400,000 euros and a year of LVMH mentorship.
- Zane Li of Lii took the Karl Lagerfeld Prize and Anil Padia of Yoshita 1967 the Savoir-Faire Prize, each worth 200,000 euros.
- Kegels founded her label in 2024, straight after graduating from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp.
Who Is Julie Kegels?
An Antwerp graduate with a two-year-old label and a notably clear subject. The Julie Kegels designer signature is feminine identity, examined through clothes that look practical until you look closer.
Tailored suits often carry hidden shorts. Fabric combinations arrive from personal memory instead of from a trend board. The result reads as surreal without ever announcing itself as such, which is a difficult register to hold.
She graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, then started the label almost immediately afterwards. Consequently her entire commercial history fits inside two years.
That short history is already international. The label stocks across Europe, Asia and the United States, and Rosalía and Dua Lipa have both worn her designs. Notably, none of that existed three years ago.
Kegels also arrives from a school with a specific weight behind it. Antwerp produced the Antwerp Six, and Belgian design has since spent forty years defining a particular intellectual rigour. She is the first from that lineage to take this prize.
What Does the LVMH Prize Actually Give You?
Money and access, in that order of visibility, although not of importance. The LVMH Prize money is a 400,000-euro endowment for the main winner. A year of tailored mentorship from LVMH teams comes with it.
The mentorship, ultimately, is the part that changes companies. It covers production, distribution, marketing, financial management, sustainability and legal structure. All of it is drawn from the group that owns Louis Vuitton, Dior, Guerlain, Dom Pérignon and Sephora.
Similarly, the Karl Lagerfeld Prize and the Savoir-Faire Prize each carry 200,000 euros and a one-year mentorship. The prize also awards three fashion school graduates 10,000 euros each. Every one of them spends a year inside the design studio of an LVMH house.
Delphine Arnault founded the award, and its track record now supports the investment case. Grace Wales Bonner, Marine Serre, Nensi Dojaka, Satoshi Kuwata of Setchu and Ellen Hodakova Larsson have all won it. Each of them scaled significantly afterwards, and quickly.
Who Else Won at the Fondation Louis Vuitton?
Two designers, and both are worth watching independently. Priyanka Chopra Jonas presented the Karl Lagerfeld Prize 2026 to Zane Li of Lii.
Zane Li Lii is New York-based, born in Chongqing and already trained at FIT. His work merges sportswear construction with couture-level precision, and he also appeared on this year’s CFDA Vogue Fashion Fund shortlist. Two major shortlists in a single year is an unusual position for an emerging label.
The Savoir-Faire Prize went to Yoshita 1967 Anil Padia, the first Kenyan designer ever to reach the LVMH Prize final. That prize exists to recognise craft and technical development rather than commercial promise. It is therefore the most interesting of the three to fashion insiders.
Who Were the 2026 Finalists?
Nine labels from nine different countries. The LVMH Prize finalists 2026 list opened with Colleen Allen from the United States. De Pino by Gabriel Figueiredo represented France, Institution by Galib Gassanoff represented Georgia, and Kegels represented Belgium.
The rest of the shortlist covered Lii from China, Petra Fagerström from Sweden and Ponte by Harry Pontefract from the United Kingdom. The Vxlley by Daniel del Valle Fernandez came from Spain, and Yoshita 1967 from Kenya.
Delphine Arnault particularly noted the geographic spread when announcing the shortlist in April. Kenya appeared on the list for the first time in the prize’s history.
Semi-finalists showed at La Samaritaine in Paris on March 4 and 5. That is an LVMH-owned department store rather than a neutral venue. That staging alone tells you how seriously the group treats the pipeline.
Why This Year’s Prize Mattered
Because of exactly who sat on the jury. The 2026 panel included Jonathan Anderson of Dior, Sarah Burton of Givenchy and Maria Grazia Chiuri of Fendi. Nicolas Ghesquière and Pharrell Williams sat for Louis Vuitton, alongside Marc Jacobs, Stella McCartney and Phoebe Philo. Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez represented Loewe, with Camille Miceli of Pucci, Nigo of Kenzo and Michael Rider of Celine.
Five of those were new to the jury this edition. McCollough, Hernandez, Miceli, Rider and Pietro Beccari all joined for the first time. That reflects how much creative leadership has changed hands in eighteen months, as Alaïa’s own transition showed last month.
That churn makes the prize more consequential, not less. Most of those designers are currently rebuilding a house. The Julie Kegels LVMH Prize 2026 vote is where they collectively pointed.
Above all, the award now functions as an industry signal rather than a grant. Winning it does not simply fund a business. It tells every buyer, editor and investor in the room which name to watch.
What Comes Next
Production comes first, always. The immediate use of 400,000 euros for a two-year-old label is scaling manufacture and stabilising delivery. That is where most young brands fail, rather than at the design stage.
Paris Fashion Week arrives at the end of this month. The Jennifer Lawrence LVMH Prize handover has already put Kegels in front of an audience she would otherwise have spent years reaching. Expect her name on more red carpets before the season ends.
Beyond that, the mentorship year determines everything. Previous winners who used it to fix operations instead of chasing visibility have generally lasted longer. Kegels has been given the rarest thing in emerging fashion. It is time, bought with someone else’s money, and it does not come around twice.
The Julie Kegels LVMH Prize 2026 win therefore buys the one thing no young label can generate for itself. It is the same leverage that turns a small house into a scaled one, whether through a prize, a mass-market collaboration or a sportswear partnership. For the designers and the prizes that turn careers on a single evening in Paris, trust Runway Magazine.
Julie Kegels LVMH Prize 2026 Win: €400,000 and a Year of Mentorship
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