Matty Bovan Is Celebrating A Double Woolmark Prize Win

London Fashion Week regular Matty Bovan has been awarded both the 2021 International Woolmark Prize and the Karl Lagerfeld Award for Innovation, becoming only the second designer to win both awards at once. The first dual winner was Edward Crutchley, who was given the Woolmark Prize for Menswear and the Innovation Award in 2019. Bovan, who was up against five other finalists, was selected by a panel of respected fashion industry figures that included Sinéad Burke, Ib Kamara, Tim Blanks, Tasha Liu and Thom Browne.

Bethany Williams, Casablanca’s Charaf Tajer, Kenneth Ize, Marie-Eve Lecavalier and Thebe Magugu had also been in the running for the awards, having honed their practices to express this year’s theme of “Less is More”, which focused specifically on sustainability, supply chains and future-proof designs.

Once chosen, the designers were tasked with using the material at the heart of the prize, Australian Merino wool, for a collection that could win them the $200,000 AUD (£111,000) International Woolmark Prize, or the $100,000 AUD (£55,000) Karl Lagerfeld Award.

In the absence of an IRL catwalk show and ceremony for 2021, Solange Knowles’s multidisciplinary agency Saint Heron created a film entitled Passage to immortalise the finalists’ collections, directed by Wu Tsang.

Bovan touched on themes of travel and escapism with his collection “Ode to the Sea”, first seen at his autumn/winter 2021 showcase. Intricate jacquards and avant-garde silhouettes – already trademarks of his unique design DNA – both featured. Intarsia knits were the hero aspect of his Woolmark capsule, which was created with the help of local suppliers in his hometown of York.

End-of-roll fabrics from AW Hainsworth, the Yorkshire textile mill, were given a new lease of life with screen-printed figures and patterns that referenced images from Bovan’s own archive. “It’s a huge honour to win these prizes and I’m so excited for where it’s going to take me – I was already so thrilled with the Woolmark Prize platform and experience,” says Bovan. “Being a part of the International Woolmark Prize has really helped elevate my brand and elevate my awareness and knowledge of how I operate as a business and as a label. It’s been amazing and I have loved every minute of it.”

Along with the other finalists, Bovan was invited to create a sustainability roadmap to ensure transparency, and a clear product journey for the customer, using technology provided by Blue Bite.

During the judging process, designer Thom Browne told Bovan: “When I see your collection, I see moving things forward and a real hunger for showing people what they haven’t seen before. And that is something that is really necessary right now and so inspiring. So, thank you for the huge inspiration and the life that you put in your collection,” he concluded.