Earlier this year, Mike Amiri announced the return of the Amiri Prize, which he launched in 2021. The new edition, the designer shared with Vogue in June, would be open to international applicants and do away with its main restriction, which stipulated that a brand needed to be in business for three years. Today, Amiri is announcing the Prize’s 2023 finalists.
“We want to open it up to focus on seeing an individual perspective, and finding someone who brings something that is authentic to them and that also has a place in the market,” Amiri said over Zoom. The recipient of the Amiri Prize will receive $100,000, but for the designer “the real gift” is the mentorship and accessibility to information. “You’ll have access to our production line, to our distribution. You can ask questions to the people in charge of these things,” said Amiri. “It’s about opening the infrastructure of my company to a designer who’s at the point where it’s going to make a big difference for them,” the designer added. “Who can we help the most?”
The list of finalists was only meant to include six names, said Amiri, but the “level and the caliber of designers was incredible, so we moved it up to nine.” The class of 2023 includes designers from six countries across four continents. But they all share one thing in common, said Amiri: “There is a sense of modernity, where many of the pieces are in some way classic but twisted to feel innovative and fresh,” he said, “they bring something to the market that doesn’t quite exist in that form.”
Amiri and the Amiri Prize are emphasizing the importance of a commercial perspective, and looking for a designer whose artistic point of view has a place in the market. “What’s special about this is that I wasn’t given a huge helping hand in building Amiri,” said the designer. “I was not an industry darling going through the first one, two, or three years, I was building brick by brick. The gift in that is understanding how the machine works, and why things are in each place and why they’re necessary. Looking at these designers, I see the reflection of the emerging designer trying to make it, it’s personal.”
The winner will be selected by a jury including Amiri, KidSuper’s Colm Dillane, A-Cold-Wall’s Samuel Ross, the designer Salehe Bembury, Vogue’s global contributing fashion editor at large Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, GQ’s global editorial director Will Welch, GQ China’s editorial director Rocco Liu, Puma creative director and designer June Ambrose, stylist Law Roach, and the stylist Lucia Liu. Expect an announcement later this month. The finalists are:
Abdel El Tayeb, a Franco-Sudanese designer who most recently collaborated with Bottega Veneta on a series of blankets for the launch of Air Afrique.
Dorian Rahimzadeh, an Iranian designer based in Canada who creates genderless streetwear out of deadstock materials.
Ekwerike Chkwuma, a Nigerian designer whose contemporary “fashion-art” label Wuman draws inspiration from the female form.
Grace Ling, a Singaporean designer based in New York who debuted on calendar at New York Fashion Week just last month.
Keith Herron, who founded his New York-based label Advisry in 2014 with the goal of fostering an interdisciplinary community.
Lukhanyo Mdingi, whose eponymous label is based in South Africa and has earned recognition for its collaborations with artisans and made him one of three winners of the Karl Lagerfeld Prize at the 2021 edition of the LVMH Prize.
Li Gong, a Chinese designer whose label 8ON8 has seen him emerge as one of China’s most promising talents by having earned him a post on Vogue Business’s 100 Innovators list.
Maxwell Osborne, the former Public School and DKNY designer who most recently launched the New York-based label anOnlyChild.
Luke Zhou and Maike Huang, the duo behind Lukewarmpeople whose work revolves around deconstruction.
