The Craft Prize That Became a Runaway Hit (2024)

On Tuesday night in Paris, inside the expansive Palais de Tokyo, a warm and enthusiastic group of artists, editors, designers, and curators—Pharrell Williams and Rick Owens among them—gathered to celebrate the handmade. The event was the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize, an annual competition and exhibition featuring independent makers from around the world, chosen for their unique skills in media, ranging from woodworking, basket weaving, and ceramics to textile art and jewelry design. This year is focused on works that speak to organic and biomorphic forms, as well as works incorporating recycled materials.

A grant prize of 50,000 euros is awarded to the winner, and this is the seventh year since the Craft Prize was founded by Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson and foundation president Sheila Loewe. Since then, the Craft Prize community has grown exponentially; this year, 3,900 makers applied. “To think that we have some 3,000 applications every year now is insane,” Anderson said in a press junket yesterday, shortly before the winner was announced. “What I find really fascinating is the number of people globally working within the craft field.” Sheila Loewe echoed the excitement about how much of an impact the prize and the foundation are making: “To think about the Craft Prize becoming a long-lasting, authentic project is a happy, beautiful dream.”

After guests made their way through the serene, silver-tile-detailed exhibition space to view the work of the 30 finalists for the prize, everyone gathered to hear the panel of 12 jury members—including Anderson, Loewe, architect Patricia Urquiola, Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Abraham Thomas, and 2023 Craft Prize winner Eriko Inazaki—announce this year’s winner and honorable mentions. In the latter category were sculpture artist and jewelry designer Miki Asai of Japan, designer emmanuel boos of France, and sculpture artist Heechan Kim of Korea. This was the first year there were three honorable mentions, instead of one or two, Anderson had noted earlier in the day. The judges’ debate had been “heated,” the choice almost too difficult to make.

After brief speeches from Loewe and Anderson, actor Aubrey Plaza came onstage to award the prize to the winner: Andrés Anza, a young Mexican artist who won for his globular, otherworldly ceramic sculpture, I Only Know What I Have Seen.

Anderson is passionate about empowering makers in all corners of the globe, not only by providing financial support through grants, but also by giving them a visible space to express and promote their talents and handwork. “For me, it’s about putting them forward, so that the brand doesn’t have to speak,” he said. “It’s about using the facilities that we have to allow them to explore and experiment, and it also really helps when they’re given another avenue to sell their work.”

The creative director is adamant about making sure the Craft Prize and the collaborative projects it yields feel purposeful and woven naturally into the foundation of the brand: “If you don’t embed yourself into it, then it is just a sheer marketing tool, whereas this is something which is going through the entire company.”

Anderson’s own long love affair with craft started many years ago, when he saw a salad bowl by British ceramicist Lucie Rie at an auction. “I became completely obsessed,” he said. “Still to this day, I still collect her work.”

It’s all very personal to him, as evidenced by his playful, artful work for Loewe. He has a deep desire to create a narrative around craft that “flattens hierarchies,” elevating the medium to the same playing field as fine art or architecture.

But while so much of craftwork is about tradition, Anderson is looking ahead, anticipating what the future of artisanship may look like, and how he and Loewe can help preserve and grow it. Surprisingly, he believes the future of craft is anchored in new technologies.

“When you look at TikTok or Instagram, people are fascinated by the idea of makers,” he said. “I think people find it therapeutic to watch people make things. Some of our highest-performing videos [at Loewe] are to do with people making something. And I think there is an innate curiosity within society at the moment to reconnect to the making process, and for us to understand why we perceive artistic value in something.” Engaging with this curiosity and feeding it are exactly what Anderson intends to do with the Craft Prize, and with the brand overall. As he noted: “It’s a good way for Loewe to be quite grounded as a brand.”

Throughout the day of the event, the vibe in the Palais de Tokyo was a sweet one. The artists mingled with one another and connected through their rarefied work. Alison Croney Moses, who is based in Boston and brought her five-year-old daughter with her to Paris, remarked, “I found my people here, people who understand the intersection of art and craft. We make these things because we want to make them. It doesn’t need to have traditional functionality or form.” Her daughter wore a bright pink frilly tutu dress and sat against the wall, just next to Moses’s mesmerizing, spiraling wood veneer sculpture Holy Shell, which hung from the ceiling. The girl was using colorful clay to build her own tiny totem, a baby-size sculpture that sort of resembled something by Ugo Rondinone.

It was one of many tender moments at the Loewe Craft Prize, maybe not so visible to everyone there, but important nonetheless. As Moses spoke about her work, her wide-eyed daughter stomped over to her, proudly showing her mother what she’d crafted in the corner. “She really loves to make things,” her mom said with a smile.