At the 41st edition of the Hyères Festival, a new generation of creatives takes center stage. Meet Grand Prix winners Yui Chen, Sassa Ann van Wyk, and Motoki Nakatani, three emerging talents pushing the boundaries of fashion, accessories, and photography through bold ideas and experimental approaches.
Held in the south of France, at Villa Noailles, the 41st edition of Hyères 2026; the Festival International de Mode, de Photographie et d’Accessoires de Hyères has once again reaffirmed its mission to discover and support emerging designers and artists, offering them international visibility and a valuable opportunity to establish themselves within the competitive creative industry.
Founded in 1986 Hyères 2026 as a competition exclusively dedicated to young fashion designers, the festival has gradually evolved into a multidisciplinary event, expanding to include photography and accessory design. Today, it serves as a platform for experimentation and creative research, bringing together innovation, craftsmanship, and artistic expression.
One of the distinctive features of the Hyères 2026 edition was that all three main juries were chaired by women, each an influential figure in her respective field: Chemena Kamali, creative director of Chloé, for fashion; Cecilie Bahnsen, Danish designer and founder of her eponymous label, for accessories; and Camille Vivier, a French photographer known for her experimental visual language, for photography.
The festival presents numerous awards, each designed to recognize different aspects of creative research. Among them, the most prestigious are the Grand Prix du Jury awards, presented to the best project in each of the three categories: fashion, accessories, and photography. Beyond artistic recognition, these awards offer opportunities to collaborate with established brands and specialized ateliers, financial support, professional mentorship, and international exposure. They are therefore not simply a celebration of talent, but a genuine investment in the future of emerging creatives. Hyères 2026 was all about it.
Yui Chen finds inspiration in the kitchen
The Grand Prix du Jury Mode of Hyères 2026 was awarded to Yui Chen, a young Chinese designer and the first Chinese creative in the festival’s history to receive this distinction. Her collection, titled Food Cover, draws inspiration from an unexpectedly ordinary object: collapsible food covers, commonly used in households to protect food.
Starting from this everyday object, Chen develops a design language that transforms familiar domestic items into wearable architecture. The garments are constructed around the body through expandable structures, layering, and three-dimensional volumes, creating sculptural silhouettes that seem to continuously reshape their relationship with the surrounding space.
What makes the collection particularly recognizable are the cage-like structures layered over more minimal garments, exaggerated proportions, and folding mechanisms that allow the pieces to change shape. One of the most interesting creations is a recycled-leather sheath dress made from eight panels, designed to fold completely into itself, much like an accordion.
This exploration of form is accompanied by a strong focus on material craftsmanship, developed in part through a collaboration with Atelier Montex, an atelier specializing in embroidery.
With Food Cover, Yui Chen transforms an ordinary object into an original aesthetic language, bringing together domestic memories, technical experimentation, and garment construction. The result is a collection that challenges the traditional idea of clothing as something static, proposing instead a dynamic, transformable, and deeply sculptural approach to fashion.
Sassa Ann van Wyk makes movement stand still
The Grand Prix du Jury Accessoires of Hyères 2026was awarded to Austrian designer Sassa Ann van Wyk, born in 1997, for her project Archive of Motion, an exploration of the relationship between accessories, the body, and movement. At the heart of her work lies a question: how can an accessory visually preserve the idea of movement, even when it remains completely still?
Her answer takes shape through sculptural headpieces that appear to defy gravity, capturing trajectories within seemingly spontaneous structures. The forms extend into space, twist, and develop in unexpected directions, creating the illusion of continuous movement despite the object’s complete stillness.
One of the most representative creations is a hat made from grey feathers speckled with black, featuring a structure that extends into a twisted shape, as though it had been frozen in the middle of a movement.
Motoki Nakatani is all about dots and perception
The Grand Prix du Jury de la Photographie of Hyères 2026 7L was awarded to Japanese photographer Motoki Nakatani, born in 1993, for his project Dot Field Dot, a visual exploration of abstraction through the use of dots as a compositional element.
The dot, an essential graphic element, becomes a tool for experimentation, capable of generating new relationships between figure and background while challenging the way we observe and interpret an image.
With Dot Field Dot, Nakatani presents a photographic approach that moves closer to the language of abstract art, shifting the focus from the subject being represented to the very structure of the image itself. His work invites viewers to consider not so much what is being photographed, but rather how an image is constructed and perceived.
Hyères 2026 confirmed its reputation of being one of the most interesting hub to discover new talents in different creative fields.