Marie Adam-Leenaerdt Wins the ANDAM Fashion Awards 2026

Marie Adam-Leenaerdt has won the Grand Prize of the 2026 ANDAM Fashion Awards. The awards, organised by the Association Nationale pour le Développement des Arts de la Mode (ANDAM), named the Belgian designer the winner on Wednesday evening at a ceremony in the Palais Royal gardens, earning her €300,000 and a year of mentorship from jury president Alexandre Mattiussi, founder and creative director of Ami Paris.

Accepting the award, Adam-Leenaerdt thanked everyone who had supported her over the previous three years and described the moment as the beginning of a new chapter in her career.

She was born and raised in Brussels and trained at La Cambre Mode(s), the Belgian design school that has produced generations of the country’s best-known names. Before starting her own label, she worked at Givenchy and at Balenciaga. She launched her brand in 2023 and joined the official Paris schedule that same year.

This was not her first attempt at the prize. Adam-Leenaerdt was an ANDAM finalist in 2024 and returned to compete again in 2026, this time reaching the top of an eleven-person shortlist. She beat out fellow finalists EgonLab, Fidan Novruzova, and Zomer for the Grand Prize.

The eleven finalists were chosen by a 31-member jury from a much larger pool of applicants, with names announced on June 3 before the July 1 ceremony. EgonLab and Zomer were both returning finalists from the 2025 edition, while Fidan Novruzova, known for history-inspired fashion, and Pauline Dujancourt joined the Grand Prize and Special Prize shortlist as first-time contenders alongside Adam-Leenaerdt.

Mattiussi, who founded Ami Paris and won ANDAM’s own top prize in 2013, praised her work in a statement released after the ceremony. Mattiussi said her work demonstrated how creativity, intelligence, passion, and a modern perspective continue to influence the direction of contemporary fashion. He will now mentor her for the next year, guiding decisions on both design direction and business growth.

Adam-Leenaerdt told WWD she plans to put the prize money toward expanding her team, with a particular focus on sales and wholesale development. She also plans to invest in production support and a design assistant. Adam-Leenaerdt said she feels ready for the next stage of the business after spending the past few years refining her creative direction and gaining a clearer understanding of the woman she designs for, describing the aesthetic she pursues as chic, effortless, and distinctive.

London-based French designer Pauline Dujancourt took home the Special Prize, ANDAM’s runner-up award, for her knitwear-focused label. She launched her brand in 2022 and has built a reputation for handmade pieces produced with small groups of specialist knitters. Dujancourt told WWD she hopes to travel to Peru to train with more knitters as her business grows and plans to document the process on camera. She also asked Mattiussi directly for advice on scaling up a business built around handmade, human-led production.

Self-taught Parisian designer Anthony Calydon won the Pierre Bergé Prize, which comes with a 100,000 euro purse and focuses on young French companies. Calydon launched his own knitwear label just last year. He will be mentored by Frédéric Maus, director general of trade fair organiser WSN.

The Innovation Prize went to Alphalyr, an AI-powered data analytics platform built for the fashion industry, with bio-based dye producer Pili taking the special prize in that category. Alphalyr cofounder Bertrand Fredenucci used his speech to stress the importance of human oversight in AI tools, calling it the only real path to using the technology well.

ANDAM was founded in 1989 and has helped launch designers including Viktor&Rolf, Christophe Lemaire, Jeremy Scott, and Marine Serre. Last year’s Grand Prize went to Meryll Rogge, who has since been named creative director at Marni. The 2026 edition carried a record prize fund of 700,000 euros spread across five categories, with backing from Chanel, Hermès, Kering, LVMH, and Saint Laurent, among others. Finalists also received practical support through the competition, including access to Balenciaga’s fabric stock, a year of press office backing from Karla Otto, and use of Longchamp’s deadstock leather.

ANDAM founder and director Nathalie Dufour thanked the competition’s sponsors and jury members in remarks at the ceremony, noting the growing number of institutional and private backers supporting the programme from both France and abroad. She described this year’s eleven finalists as a high-caliber group whose varied creative work the jury looked forward to seeing develop.

France’s Minister of Culture Catherine Pégard attended the ceremony and spoke about the award’s place in the country’s fashion industry. She called ANDAM a cornerstone of French fashion’s ecosystem, one she said deserves continued support as it keeps reinventing itself. Pégard described fashion as an integral part of France’s history and national identity.

Adam-Leenaerdt’s collections are known for sculptural, rectangular skirts that have become something of a signature since her 2023 debut. She now has 300,000 euros, a year of mentorship from Mattiussi, and a mandate to build out her sales and production team. The work starts immediately.