Printemps Opens Photography Exhibit Spotlighting Art and Sustainability

PHOTO CALL: Sustainability took center stage on the seventh floor of Printemps on the closing day of Paris Couture Week, as the Grand Prix Photography & Sustainability 2025 exhibit officially opened with a cocktail Thursday evening.

The event marked the launch of a thought-provoking exhibition where fashion, art and environmental activism converge — on the very floor that houses the retailer’s vintage and upcycled collections.

Now in its fourth edition, the award, presented by creative recruiting firm Eyes On Talents and the Paris Good Fashion organization, celebrates photographers and visual artists who use aesthetics to drive forward a vision of a more responsible world.

“This award isn’t just about photography, it’s about igniting a worldwide dialogue on sustainability,” organizers said.

This year’s laureates, including Clara Chichin, Jeff Rich, Just Willis, and the mononymous Flama, were selected from 73 global submissions.

Titled “Look Again” and created in collaboration with fellow Venezuelan artists, Flama’s project transforms existing works into wearable objects, blurring the lines between fashion, art and sustainability.

“We need to reconcile with what we were before we were told to want more,” said Flama. “In the past we didn’t know we wanted more and more and more. I wanted to look at what we used to value before we started to value the fact of always consuming,” he said. He aimed to make a statement about longevity and sustainability, as well as reframing fashion.

For the now Madrid-based artist, it was also a healing project — one that helped mend the “rift” with his home country by working with Venezuelan artists to create a new way of viewing their work.

His winning entries are part of an ongoing project that has so far spanned eight years, and will continue, he said.

Two winners hail from the United States.

Rich’s work, “Yield,” is a visual study of Montana’s scarred landscapes after decades of mining, including creeks filled with waste and the recent expansion of oil fields. Willis’ collage work reflects on “Bread and Circus,” the Roman-age concept of citizens giving up their political power in exchange for entertainment, as well as the U.S. legacy of slavery.

From France, Chichin’s work is an exploration of urban parks that create natural refuges in the heart of cities, reframing them as spaces of resistance and wonder.

Printemps Group chief executive officer Jean-Marc Bellaiche sat on the jury alongside ANDAM president Nathalie Dufour, Diptyque chief brand officer Nathalie Chopra, Institut Français de la Mode dean Xavier Romatet, Paris Good Fashion president Sylvie Ebel, and Eyes on Talents partner Astrid de Montessus, among others.

The exhibit was curated by Vittoria Matarrese and will run through Aug. 31 at Printemps’ Boulevard Haussmann Paris flagship before traveling to Printemps New York later this year.