History
The Hyères Festival has been promoting young talent in the fashion industry since 1986, in photography since 1997, and since 2017, it has dedicated a competition and award to fashion accessories. Each year, within the framework of Villa Noailles, the Festival revolves around three competitions, exhibitions, and roundtable discussions. The competitions bring together ten fashion designers, ten photographers, and ten accessory designers, selected by professional juries. The creations of the selected candidates are presented in the form of collective exhibitions and videos for the accessories competition, fashion shows and showrooms for the fashion competition, and collective exhibitions for the photography competition.
The festival has fostered the talents of now-established figures in the fashion industry, including Viktor & Rolf, Gaspard Yurkievich, Felipe Oliveira Baptista, Sébastien Meunier, Anthony Vaccarello, Julien Dossena, Yiqing Yin, Léa Peckre, Satu Maaranen, Solve Sundsbo, Vava Ribeiro, Erwan Frotin, Joël Tettamanti, Charles Fréger, Grégoire Alexandre, Camille Vivier, Franco Musso & Luciana Val, Thomas Mailaender, Rushemy Botter and Lisie Herrebrugh, Marina Chedel, Christoph Rumpf, Ifeanyi Okwuadi, Julia Dessirier, Kate Fichard and Flora Fixy, Noelia Morales, Capucine Huguet, Joshua Cannone, and Gabrielle Huguenot.
The major asset of the Hyères Festival lies in the interest shown by professionals who make up the jury and the partners who sponsor and finance the event by offering various prizes and endowments.
Over the past thirty years, some of the most influential personalities have participated in the juries. For fashion accessories: Pierre Hardy, Christelle Kocher, Charlotte Chesnais, Hubert Barrère, Chistian Louboutin, Aska Yamashita, Alan Crocetti, and Achilles Ion Gabriel. For fashion: Martin Margiela, Hussein Chalayan, Helmut Lang, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Martine Sitbon, John Galliano, Jean Colonna, Azzedine Alaïa, Ann Demeulemeester, Christian Lacroix, Riccardo Tisci, Haider Ackermann, Kris van Assche, Dries van Noten, Raf Simons, Yohji Yamamoto, Felipe Oliveira Baptista, Carol Lim & Humberto Leon, Karl Lagerfeld, Julien Dossena, Bertrand Guyon, Glenn Martens, Natacha Ramsay-Levi, Jonathan Anderson, Louise Trotter, and Charles de Villmorin. For photography: Marc Ascoli, Terry Jones, Peter Saville, Emmanuel Perrotin, Jeff Burton, Viviane Sassen, Melvin Sokolsky, Tim Walker, Peter Knapp, Walter Pfeiffer, Steven Hiett, Kamel Mennour, Bettina Rheims, Dominique Issermann, Pierre Debusschere.