On Saturday, September 26, during Milan Fashion Week, Timisola Shasanya received the first Sozzani Award at Fondazione Sozzani, Via Bovisasca 87, Milano.
Established by Fondazione Sozzani, the annual award recognizes young global talents in Photography, Fashion, and Design & Craft who combine independence, rigor, and responsibility, and who can initiate new narratives and impact the present with vision and awareness. The Sozzani Award is founded on the commitment to recognize those who create with conscious dedication, those who build unprecedented languages, and those who preserve memory while simultaneously opening new paths.
The First Edition: Women — Design & Craft Category
The first edition, themed Women, celebrates women and their identities who, through their research and work, contribute to the development of contemporary culture, and recognizes the fundamental role of women in defining new cultural languages. Shasanya received the Veuve Clicquot Design & Craft Scholarship for Women (€15,000). Finalists Marie-Éve Lecavalier (Canada/Paris) and Mai Suzki (Japan/London) have been invited to present their work at Fondazione Sozzani in Milan during 2026/2027. The winner was selected by an international jury including Carla Sozzani, Sara Sozzani Maino, Veronica Leoni, Olivier Saillard, Galib Gassanoff, Fabrice Paineau, and Kris Ruhs.
About the Winner: Timisola Shasanya
Timisola Shasanya is a British-Nigerian designer, a Central Saint Martins graduate, and currently an MA student at the Institut Français de la Mode in Paris. Her practice spans fashion, textiles, and object-making, exploring the intersection of bespoke menswear, Nigerian craft, and migration. By combining traditional techniques like weaving and dyeing with technological processes such as laser cutting and digital embroidery, she creates works that investigate the connection between cultural identity and innovation.
The Finalists
Marie-Éve Lecavalier is a Canadian designer based in Paris. Her practice spans leather, textiles and objects, exploring the intersection of fashion, design and contemporary art. Combining craftsmanship with material research and experimental construction, she creates sculptural works in which technique and material become integral to form, investigating the relationship between body, material and structure. Her research follows a continuous cycle of transformation, preserving and reintroducing offcuts into new materials and future works, while challenging traditional notions of value, luxury and art.
Mai Suzki is a Japanese visual artist based in London, working across sculpture for the body, spatial installation, performance and objects. Her practice centres on her original kumiko technique, combining traditional Japanese woodworking with 3D modelling and human anatomy. Drawn to Japanese sensibilities through calligraphy, she translates the Japanese spirit of iki into contemporary expression, interpreting it as a way of approaching life with curiosity and playfulness, even within difficulty or constraint. She creates embodied "living art" that comes alive and transforms through the interplay of body, movement, light, sound, space, and time.
Photo: The jury, the finalists, and the winner of the first edition of the Sozzani Award at Fondazione Sozzani during Milan Fashion Week.
