Guillaume Houzé of the Galeries Lafayette group succeeds Pierre Bergé as President of ANDAM

By

Anaïs Lerévérend

Translated by
Nicola Mira

Published
Nov 23, 2017

ANDAM (the French National Association for the Development of the Fashion Arts) has found its new president. The association was created in 1989 by Nathalie Dufour, and since its inception it was chaired by Pierre Bergé, Yves Saint Laurent’s life and business partner.

Bergé passed away last September, and the ANDAM board has now appointed as his successor Guillaume Houzé, a member of the founder family of department store group Galeries Lafayette, since 2003 a patron of the ANDAM prize for emerging designers.

In addition to this new role, Guillaume Houzé is also the Director of Image and Communication for the Galeries Lafayette and BHV department stores, the President of the Galeries Lafayette corporate foundation and the Director of Image and Sponsorship Programmes for the Galeries Lafayette group.

Houzé has a long-established relationship with ANDAM. He was until now one of its trustees, and a member of the jury which each year picks the ANDAM designer competition winners. In 2016 he was also appointed "sponsor of the first collection prize," as closer links were forged between the department store group and the association.

With Houzé's appointment as president of ANDAM, the connection between the two institutions is no doubt likely to continue and intensify.

ANDAM is also backed by French public body DEFI (the Committee for the Development and Promotion of Apparel) and France's Ministry of Culture, and each year it awards several scholarships and prizes to fashion designers. The list of former winners includes prestigious names such as Martin Margiela, Christophe Lemaire, Felipe Oliveira Baptista, Anthony Vaccarello, Alexandre Mattiussi, Iris van Herpen, and more recently Léa Peckre and Wanda Nylon.

In 2017, four prizes were awarded by ANDAM: the first, worth €280,000, went to Glenn Martens and his Y/Project label; the second, the 'creative label prize', worth €100,000, to AVOC; the third to designer Ana Khouri for the accessories category (first created in 2015) and the last, the innovation prize (first created in 2017), to French start-up Euveka.