Who are the winners of the 23rd Picto Prize for Fashion Photography?

Charlotte Abramow, Sofia and Mauro, Gabriel Dia… These young talents have been unearthed over the years by the Picto Prize. Organized since 1998 by the eponymous photography laboratory, this prize aims to support young emerging creation around the world. Awarded to a single winner until 2014, the prize now rewards three winners. As in previous editions, the award ceremony takes place in the courtyard of the prestigious Palais Galliera, which is currently hosting a retrospective dedicated to the magazine Vogue Paris showcasing more than a hundred fashion shots taken by the greatest fashion photographers of the twentieth century, from Helmut Newton to Guy Bourdin. This year, the jury had to choose from a set of twenty-five finalists.

Slovakia’s Natalia Evelyn Bencicova won the first prize unanimously by the jury. The 29-year-old woman, who Above all, it conceives the image as a tool to shift beauty standards, presented a series of photos featuring people with disabilities for the prize. As every year, Picto will produce a solo exhibition of the photographer to the tune of €2000 while the urban advertising group JCDecaux will offer her a poster campaign in Paris. The winner will also win a professional Leica camera model,  provided by the award’s partner brand.

For the second year, Chanel is renewing its support for emerging photography by offering one of the winners a collaboration with one of its eleven craft and fashion houses, now located at 19M, a building located in the north-east of Paris that recently opened. Named  “19M endowment of the photography of the Métiers d’art”, this prize will allow one of the young talents to produce a series of photographs for one of the houses of this new pole. This year’s honour goes to Frenchman Laurent Poleo-Garnier. Between Paris and Berlin, the young photographer captured the silhouettes of his friends and lovers alike. Deeply inspired by the work of Jean Paul Gaultier, president of the jury of this year’s first Picto Prize, it was a very emotional young man who received this photographic commission from Chanel last night.

Finally, the Senegalese-born photographer Gabriel Dia
– winner of the 2020 edition – was invited to present the third prize, called “Filippo Roversi Endowment” in honor of the famous fashion photographer Paolo Roversi. Noted for her fine black and white portraits made in collaboration with designer Tina Schwizgebel Wang – winner of the Chloé Prize at the Hyères festival in 2019 –  and a young non-professional model, Swiss Olivia Malena Vidal was rewarded above all for her technical audacity. Both a painter and a photographer, the young woman presented two projects, including a series of photographs in which,  directly on the glossy paper of a fashion magazine, she transformed the slender silhouettes of the models into abstract shapes in shimmering colors. Based between Geneva and Amsterdam, this young artist will be invited to work for a day with Paolo Roversi, of whom she will be offered an original print as well as 1000€ of aid for the realization by Picto. For the fifth consecutive year, each of these three winners will see some of their prints join the prestigious collection of the Palais Galliera.