Peet Dullaert, the Dutch fashion designer known for his sculptural approach to garment construction, has won the first edition of the New Crafts Awards, a prize launched by hospitality giant Accor in partnership with the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode. The award, which comes with a featured show slot during Paris Couture Week, represents a new interface between luxury hospitality and high fashion that could reshape how emerging couture talent is discovered and supported.
Dullaert’s work occupies a distinctive territory between fashion and object design. His collections are built around what he calls ‘wearable sculptures’ — garments that use structural engineering techniques to create silhouettes that appear to defy gravity without resorting to visible support structures. His earlier collections have been acquired by the Centraal Museum in Utrecht and the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, placing him in the tradition of Dutch conceptual designers that includes Iris van Herpen and Viktor&Rolf.
The New Crafts Awards were designed to bridge two industries that share a reliance on artisanal skill but rarely collaborate formally. Accor, which operates luxury hotels including Raffles, Fairmont, and Orient Express, has been investing in cultural programming as a differentiator in the competitive hospitality market. For FHCM, the partnership provides a new channel for supporting craft traditions that are central to couture’s identity but face pressure from industrialization and talent shortages.
Dullaert’s ascent is part of a broader recognition that couture’s future depends on its ability to attract and retain craft talent. The New Crafts Awards, if it continues, could become a meaningful pipeline for the next generation of atelier-trained designers — a counterbalance to the fashion education system that increasingly emphasizes digital design and marketing skills over handcraft. For Dullaert, the award and the exposure it brings may be the turning point that moves his work from museum collections into a sustainable independent business.
Dullaert’s winning collection explored the relationship between interior and exterior space, using garments as architectural metaphors for the rooms we inhabit. The pieces — constructed from layered organza, molded leather, and hand-finished metal mesh — suggested both the structure of a building and the softness of the life within it. The prize includes not only the couture week presentation slot but also a collaboration with Accor’s Orient Express brand, pointing toward a future where fashion and hospitality create experiences that extend beyond the traditional fashion show format.
