Australian designer Christopher Esber wins 2024 Andam Grand Prize

There was febrile anticipation on Thursday night in Paris, when the fashion world’s grandees met in the Palais Royal gardens for the Andam 2024 award ceremony. And the winner of the competition’s 35th edition was … Lebanon-born Australian designer Christopher Esber, who was awarded the Andam Grand Prize. The Andam competition for emerging fashion designers was founded in 1989 by Nathalie Dufour, its managing director, backed by the Ministry of Culture and DEFI, and is chaired by Guillaume Houzé. This year, the jury’s special prize went to 3.Paradis, the label by French designer Emeric Tchatchoua.

 
Pièces Uniques, a label by another French designer, Edmond Luu, won the Pierre Bergé prize, recognising an emerging French fashion company, and Maeden, a leather goods brand led by Dutch designer Christian Heikoop, won the fashion accessories prize. The winner of the fifth prize awarded by Andam this year, the Innovation prize, first introduced in 2017, was announced in April. It was Alternative Innovation, a French producer which has developed an alternative to leather called Alterskin. 
 
The total value of this year’s prize money was €700,000, divided between the Grand Prize (€300,000), the jury’s special prize (€100,000), the Pierre Bergé prize (€100,000), the fashion accessories prize (€100,000) and the Innovation prize (€100,000). Each of the winners will also benefit from a one-year mentorship with a dedicated sponsor. Anthony Vaccarello, creative director of Saint Laurent, patron of this year’s edition and president of the jury, will mentor the Grand Prize winner.

Esber, 36, was a finalist at the Woolmark Prize in 2013, and in September 2023 his eponymous women’s ready-to-wear label featured for the first time on the Paris fashion week’s presentation calendar. Founded in Sydney in 2010, Christopher Esber glorifies sensual femininity and a relaxed elegance. It combines structured silhouettes with fluid garments accented by cutouts, subverting traditional womenswear codes with elements of men’s tailoring.
 
Esber, a quiet man, developed a taste for fashion by watching his aunt sew in the family atelier. After studying at the Fashion Design Studio at TAFE NSW in Sydney, and a one-year apprenticeship with a local tailor, Esber continued as a self-taught designer.
 

3.Paradis, an emerging French label that has been featuring on the Parisian presentation calendar for the last two seasons, scarcely needs an introduction. Its founder Emeric Tchatchoua, born in Paris from Cameroonian parents, lived for 18 years between the French capital and Montréal, in Québec, where his family had emigrated, before finally settling back in France in 2023.

Tchatchoua’s upmarket style blends formal codes, streetwear and fine materials, with an emphasis on artisanal craftsmanship and new technologies. 3.Paradis is distributed by 80-90 multibrand retailers worldwide. Tchatchoua, whose label’s symbol is a dove, often infuses his collections with a multicultural spirit.
 
Edmond Luu is a fashion enthusiast who founded his menswear label Pièces Uniques while studying advertising “in the Paris banlieue in 2016.” In his presentation, Luu said that “the label became established through sheer willpower and resourcefulness.” Luu likes to reinterpret the traditional staples of menswear, drawing his inspiration from manga, comics, sci-fi movies, and a whole world of fantastical stories and characters.
 
Last year, the Andam Grand Prize went to LGN Louis Gabriel Nouchi, while Ester Manas and Duran Lantink won the special jury prize, Arthur Avellano won the Pierre Bergé prize, and Ruslan Baginskiy the fashion accessories prize.