ANDAM Winners From the Past 35 Years Are Getting a Paris Exhibition

WINNERS’ CIRCLE: Martin Margiela’s offbeat vest made of broken plates, part of his fall 1989 collection, will go on display this fall at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

The exhibition is to mark the 35th anniversary of French fashion competition ANDAM, of which Margiela was the first winner. He had styled the DIY ceramic-and-wire creation with an optical-stripe turtleneck, a sweeping wool skirt with jeans-style pockets, and cleft-toed boots.

Titled “Fashion — New Generations: 35 Years of ANDAM,” the exhibition is slated to run from Oct. 1 until March 30, 2025, and span roughly 30 outfits and accessories, too.

Sophie Lemahieu, the curator in charge of post-1947 fashion and textiles collections at Les Arts Décoratifs, is in charge of the exhibition and plans to highlight how designers have grappled with such subjects as fashion history, the human body and the climate crisis.

Past winners include Gareth Pugh, Jeremy Scott, Glenn Martens of Y/Project and Marine Serre. Australian designer Christopher Esber, who scooped the 2024 grand prize, and Ester Manas and Duran Lantink, who both received the runner-up special prize in 2023, also figure in the new exhibition.

The museum will highlight the late Spanish shoe designer Vicente Rey, a 2003 winner, thanks to an important donation in 2022 of his fierce boots and fantastical, feather-festooned shoes.

According to the museum, all ANDAM winners are invited to donate emblematic pieces from their collections, thus enriching its collection of contemporary fashions.

Created in 1989 by Nathalie Dufour with the support of the French Ministry of Culture and the DEFI, a body that promotes the development of the French fashion industry, and with the late Pierre Bergé as president, ANDAM has been a springboard for designers who would go on to achieve international recognition.

ANDAM is the French acronym for National Association of the Development of the Fashion Arts.