MILAN — Loro Piana continues to nurture young talents through the art of knitting.
On Thursday, the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton-owned Italian luxury brand revealed the winners of the 10th edition of the Loro Piana 2026 Knit Design Award with a ceremony held at the Rossana Orlandi Gallery in Milan.
“The art of knitting is so important for us, and so we believe we have this responsibility also to express that more globally, to inspire students, to inspire people to make a career in this beautiful world of knitting,” said Loro Piana chief executive officer Frédéric Arnault during the event.
The contest, launched to promote young designers from leading design schools worldwide, selects a theme each year that challenges students to infuse innovation into the brand’s signature yarns. Through the initiative, the brand has collaborated with 21 schools across eight countries, engaging more than 90 students from 15 nationalities and donating 1,000 kilograms of yarns over the past decade.
For this year’s theme — “Knitting Light — Craft on the Evolution of Colour” — students, who have been working on the project since October, were challenged to experiment with one mélange and up to three mouliné cashmere yarns. Asked to embrace technology’s transformative power to enhance shades, students had to create a convertible garment or silhouette representing transformation and evolution.
“It was interesting to see the different ways this brief was interpreted. Of course, cashmere is an important part of the brief. It’s in our DNA, and we are strongly committed to constantly refining its finesse, a vision that we started decades ago,” Arnault said.
“It’s been a pleasure to see how the students have played with it, combining it with the technical fibers, and the resulting projects demonstrate an extraordinary fusion of artistic vision and technical mastery,” he added.
Students Viola Schmidt and Halla Lilja Ármannsdóttir from the Swedish School of Textiles, tutored by Professor Lara Alvarez, won the award — a golden yarn spool-like trophy — for their project called “Glitsky — Mother of Pearl.”
The transformable midi dress by students Viola Schmidt and Halla Lilja Ármannsdóttir which earned them the Loro Piana 2026 Knit Design Award.
Courtesy of Loro Piana
The project took inspiration from the natural phenomenon of sunlight hitting crystallized clouds and refracting a full palette of colors. The students employed Loro Piana’s cashmere and other specialty yarns to create a modular, transformable midi dress. The structured top layer was backed up by a softer under layer, each characterized by a patchwork of diamond-shaped patterns. The patterns could be rearranged and detached through an integrated linking system.
The winners will receive a scholarship from Loro Piana consisting of 10,000 euros per student, a contract to work for the company and the opportunity to develop their samples to turn them into viable garments with help from the house’s knitwear team. The final products will be showcased at the upcoming edition of textile trade show Pitti Filati, to be held in Florence from June 24 to 26.
A special mention award was bestowed on the project presented by Li-Yue Chen and Tzu-Wei Yang hailing from Taipei’s Shih Chien University.
The Knit Design Award’s anniversary edition saw the participation of eight renowned design schools, including Italy’s Accademia Costume e Moda, Tokyo’s Bunka Fashion College, École Duperré Paris, New York’s Parsons School of Design, and Shih Chien University.
“Always be demanding, curious, rigorous, never stop questioning limits and seeking new paths; your passion and commitments are really a source of inspiration for us all,” Arnault encouraged students.
“For a full decade, we have remained steadfast in our commitments to championing the art of knitting, continually spurring creativity, and innovation in this ‘métier,’ that lies at the core of our maison’s DNA. I look forward to discovering the next 10 years of the knit design world,” he said.
Loro Piana also set up a dedicated exhibition space at the Rossana Orlandi Gallery featuring winning projects from 2016 onward to showcase the contest’s evolution and the brand’s growing investment in the award.
The jury of the Loro Piana 2026 Knit Design Award.
Courtesy of Loro Piana
Arnault presided over a jury that included Loro Piana executives Elvira Grimaldi, chief human resources officer; Alessandra Varianini, product development and collection merchandising director; Lucia De Cet, head of yarns R&D; designer Edward Buchanan; Milan-based artistic director, stylist and creative consultant Anna Dello Russo; Sara Sozzani Maino, creative director of Fondazione Sozzani and international new talent and brands ambassador at Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana; Satoshi Kuwata, founder and creative director of the Setchu brand, as well as Rossana Orlandi, founder and creative director of the namesake gallery, among others.
