Twenty designers were announced as finalists for the edition 2022 of the Yu Prize, a fashion-focused annual award and program set up by Wendy Yu in 2020 and presented by Yu Holdings in official association with Shanghai Fashion Week and the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode. The competition is created to celebrate and support the journeys of the most promising and pioneering Chinese fashion talents and it gives the winner a cash prize of 1 million renminbi or $155,000. The official winner will also receive other additional benefits: OTB will offer a dedicated mentoring program to the winner, Harrods with a focus on retail support for the winner, and lifestyle platform Xiaohongshu, which will provide all semi-finalists with training on how to establish and increase the profile and impact of their personal and fashion brand.

The 10 Yu Prize finalists will be announced on March 2, 2022 and the Yu Prize awards ceremony will take place during the next edition of Shanghai Fashion Week.

Now in its second year, for the first time, the program is introducing the naming of 20 semi-finalists as part of its 2022 competition. To date designer applications have been reviewed and scored by the Yu Prize's esteemed committee, compromising of Madame Lu (Vice Secretary General of Shanghai Fashion Week), Pascal Morand (Executive President of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode), Renzo Rosso (President of OTB), Sara Sozzani Maino (Deputy Director of Vogue Italia and Head of Vogue Talents), Michael Ward (Managing Director of Harrods) and Wendy Yu (Founder & President of Yu Holdings).

"The level of talent in China is going from strength to strength, and whilst we are excited to scout for the official winners of the Yu Prize, we also want to provide more opportunity to celebrate other participating designers who are on the up and help them gain recognition. Our strategy together with our Prize partners further accentuates this; we share a common objective which is to nurture Chinese creatives as a whole community whilst providing game-changing opportunities on an individual basis,” said Wendy Yu, founder of the Yu Prize.

Here the full list of the 2022 Yu Prize nominees:

ALA TIANAN by Tianan Ding
ALIENANT by Yuchen Han
BAD BINCH TONGTONG by Terrence Zhou
CHAN CHIT LO by Chan Chit Lo
CHENG CHENG by Cheng Cheng
DIDU by Di Du
HIGHLIGHT by Chichin Wu & Minho He
KEH FORME by Wei Ge & Aoyu Zhang
LOUIS SHENGTAO CHEN by Louis Chen
MARKGONG by Mark Gong
MARRKNULL by Mark Wang & Tim Shi
NOSENSE OFFICIAL by Shi Chang
PONDER.ER by Alex Po & Derek Cheng
PRIVATE POLICY by Haoran Li & Siying Qu
RUOHAN by Ruohan Nie
VICTOR LI by Victor Li
VICTOR WONG by Victor Wong
WMWM by Mushroom Song
YIRANTIAN by Yirantian Guo
ZIIICIIEN by ZIIICIIEN