Hyères Festival
30 April - 3 May 2004
The Festival International des Arts de la Mode à Hyères gathers together ten young fashion designers and ten young photographers under the patronage of an international jury, drawn from across the creative industries. Directed by Jean-Pierre Blanc, the festival acts as an international springboard for new talent and showcases their work in art, photography and fashion in several exhibitions. Many names have launched onto the world stage as a result of their participation in the competitions, including Viktor & Rolf, Anoushka Bloomers & Niels Schumm, Gaspard Yurkievich, Camille Vivier, Xavier Delcour and Sølve Sundsbø.
Now into its nineteenth year, the festival boasts two competitions, one for fashion and the other for photography. A selection of established names in the respective fields judge each prize. Anna Sui, Franca Sozzani, Yvan Mispelaere and Martine Sitbon will form part of a selected jury for the fashion competition and Charlotte Cotton, Thomas Lenthal, Masoud Golsorkhi and Jonathan de Villiers are among the jury for photography competition.
Curator, Michael Mallard will also combine the works of the young talents as well as those of established practitioners in an accompanying exhibition programme, which runs until 6 June 2004. Two finalists from last year’s photography competition have been commissioned to create a body of work exclusively for the festival: one will focus on the creations of the designers short listed for the fashion competition and the other will make an interpretative study of the town of Hyères. In addition, there will be major exhibitions by designer Henrik Vibskov and fashion photographer Jonathan De Villiers.
Penny Martin takes the SHOWstudio Picture Phone to the festival, to document this increasingly influential fashion and photography showcase as it unfolds in a real-time relay of live imagery.
Project Credits
Images and text: Penny Martin
Mobile Communications Coordinator: Ross Phillips
Technical Development: Dorian Moore