Her primary source of inspiration was femininity in all its forms. There’s an obvious desire at Lanvin to highlight female curves, to adorn the body, to veil it, to drape fabrics over it to perfect it. By cutting fabric diagonally, her draping technique was born from a combination of supple pleats yielding a sensuality and freedom of movement that have since become synonymous with Lanvin style. These wild drapings are owed to Jeanne Lanvin’s inspiration from Persian pieces.
When Alber Elbaz took over the brand’s creative direction in 2001, he resolutely anchored this draping into the label’s codes. A master of fabrics, Alber became “Alber of Lanvin”, encircling the body, entangling fabrics, tying them together to better untie them, bringing them to life, making them spin with each step of their elegant wearer. He created pleats, bringing shadow and light to washed silk, adorning a smooth fabric with majestic vales of cloth. He imagined waves of tissues on the skin – he masterfully dreamed of them. He sketched lightness, using and abusing this practice that gives a ‘second skin’ effect. He fascinated those ‘in the know’, bringing his creations closer to Antiquity with a lightness and joy that inhabited his textile sculptures.
Lanvin brings their craftsmanship to delicate furs that slip themselves on the body with refined couture only increasing the splendidness of their work. Their enrapturing sense of detail and work with fabrics highlights their method all while subjugating it – never losing sight of their goal to perfect women is Lanvin’s mantra. Alber Elbaz’ successor Bouchra Jarrar is now taking on this almost ancestral savoir-faire, injecting a dose of tailoring into Lanvin’s iconic drapings but still developing a certain sophisticated nonchalance. Whether with a cowl neck or fabrics brought to the hips to allow tubular pleats to delicately fall, these drapings ensure for a look as feline as it is classic. Sometimes a touch romantic, but ceaselessly reinvented.
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