Get to Know This Year's Fashion Awards Nominees - WWD

The Fashion Awards, the U.K.’s answer to the Met Gala, is taking place on Monday evening at the Royal Albert Hall in London to celebrate and recognize what the fashion industry has achieved this past year.

The big prizes of the night are the Designer of the Year Award and the BFC Foundation Award, which is dedicated to emerging talent.

Kim Jones, Silvia Venturini Fendi and Delfina Delettrez Fendi Masato Onoda/WWD

The nominees for the Designer of the Year Award include Balenciaga creative director Demna Gvasalia, Loewe creative director and JW Anderson founder Jonathan Anderson, Dior artistic director of men’s and Fendi’s artistic director of haute couture, ready-to-wear and fur collections for women Kim Jones, Prada co-creative directors Miuccia Prada, and Raf Simons, as well as Daniel Lee, who parted ways with Bottega Veneta earlier this month.

For the BFC Foundation Award, Bethany Williams; LVMH Prize-winner Nensi Dojaka; Priya Ahluwalia; Richard Quinn, and ANDAM Award-winner Bianca Saunders are among the nominees.

Nensi Dojaka with a model wearing her design in the studio. Richard Young/Gomez de Villaboa/WWD

An Outstanding Achievement Award will also be handed out to Tommy Hilfiger, while the recipient for the Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creator will be given to Dazed editor in chief Ib Kamara.

Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele will receive the Trailblazer Award.

The British Fashion Council noted that, in the past year, Michele has presented Gucci’s Aria and Love Parade collections, launched Vault by Gucci, and opened the Gucci Garden Archetypes exhibit and the Gucci Archive in Florence, “continuing to expand the scope of what a traditional luxury fashion brand should be.”

The Trailblazer Award was introduced at The Fashion Awards in 2018, and is one of the Special Recognition Awards, recognizing innovators and creatives in fashion “whose work in the past year has been a game-changer and has significantly shaped the industry.”