Subtle Suiting Is Back on Top—Meet the 2025 LVMH Prize Winner

Soshi Otsuki is proof that good things in fashion are worth the wait, even when they take nearly a decade to come to fruition. Today, in front of a jury of design greats including Sarah Burton and Jonathan Anderson, the Japanese-born-and-based designer took home the 2025 LVMH Prize, receiving a €400,000 endowment and a one-year mentorship program.

When Otsuki started his brand Soshiotsuki a decade ago, he quickly gained the attention of the industry and found himself almost instantly shortlisted for the 2016 prize. However, his label needed time to mature its vision and solidify its DNA. Fast forward ten years later and Otsuki is known for his classic suits that offer subtle subversions like a double waistband, shrunken vest, or off-kilter necktie the size of a silk foulard.

Soshiotsuki’s fall 2024 collection during Tokyo Fashion Week.

Otsuki takes inspiration from late ’80s Japanese aesthetics known as the “Japanese Assets Price Bubble”—a time when the country’s economy inflated, alongside the corporate penchant for powerful Italian-made suits and consumerism, eventually leading to stagnation and the so-called “Lost Decade” of the ’90s. “There are many vintage Italian pieces in the Japanese secondhand market and I like collecting and [referencing] them. I like to take the references and reinterpret them in a Japanese way [with] modern tailoring,” explains Otsuki in an interview with ELLE via a translator.

The designer will take tonight to celebrate, joking in an interview that his plans for after the ceremony are to go for a drink; however, he understands that with the prize money and mentorship, he’s ready to expand the offerings of his brand. “My working on tailored items like suits doesn’t change, of course, but I now realize that I need to expand my brand,” he says.

“It needs to access more people. So maybe I [will want] to work on more casual pieces that would go well with the tailoring pieces. That’s one of the things that I think I need to tackle next.” He feels confident that his designs will continue to translate internationally across Japan and the Western markets, adding that his primary concerns when it came to “translation” and his brand were “the language barrier” and “taxes.”

Steve O Smith, Soshi Otsuki, and Torishéju Dumi in Paris after the prize ceremony.

Soshiotsuki wasn’t the only brand to take home a trophy today, either. Steve O Smith and Torishéju Dumi of Torishéju won the Karl Lagerfeld and Savoir-Faire Prizes, respectively. Both designers will receive €200,000 and a one-year mentorship from LVMH experts. Though different in aesthetic, both London-based designers are experts in their conceptual craft. Dumi will also receive €50,000 in embellishments for her next collection in collaboration with Maison Vermont.

Kendall Jenner wears Torishéju at the 2025 Met Gala.

Dumi, who blends slightly “uncanny” motifs—like stretched lumpy fabrics—with wearable silhouettes, often finds herself at the center of two different types of craft: avant-garde art and traditional tailoring. Her eccentricities have appealed to boundary-pushing celebrities: she dressed Kendall Jenner for this year’s Met Gala and Zendaya wore a look inspired by the spring 2024 collection during the Dune: Part Two press tour.

“I’m quite obsessed with art as much as I am with fashion, and the worlds [will] forever collide with each other,” Dumi tells ELLE. “It’s imperative for a brand to actually look at fashion, look at history, look at art, and put that into a whole mixture and create a world.”

Eddie Redmayne wears Steve O Smith at the opening night of "Cabaret" on Broadway

Likewise, Smith finds himself merging his artwork with his designs. His made-to-order dresses frequently feature brushstroke-like accents across sheer, structured materials. He explains while sitting next to Dumi on Zoom from the prize ceremony, “A lot of the time it’s happenstance. I think part of the reason I’m able to be so gung-ho about the way that we make the visual prints is because it’s just whatever I draw. And so there’s an authenticity, an honesty to it, where it’s not that considered.”

Past honorees for the various prizes have included Hodakova, Duran Lantink (the now-creative director of Jean Paul Gaultier), Rihanna and A$AP Rocky favorite ERL, Wales Bonner, and Jacquemus. This year’s trio of victors, now officially backed by their winnings and mentorship, should be more on your radar than ever.