September, 26th, 2014

PARIS | PRINTEMPS ÉTÉ 2015 | LANVIN

EMOTION NEVER LEFT

In 1997 Claude Montana took over the design, but the house remained, according to critics a “Sleeping Beauty ” never finding a renewed sense of style. In March 2002, Alber Elbaz debuted his first collection for the house of Lanvin. Alber Elbaz (Geoffrey Beene, Guy Laroche, Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, and Krizia Top) who thought about becoming a doctor, looks for treatments, for nostrums for every woman dressing drama, to make her look and feel good about herself.

Freudian, Elbaz remains, season after season, fascinated by LA Femme – ego, libido, repression, conquered or unconquered demons, responsibilities, various guises – and in each collection for Lanvin, he has sought to find a way to decode that tangle of moods, fusing the functions of judge, doctor and priest altogether.

After twelve years, Lanvin’s pop fashion still employs his vocabulary aware of its origins and human underpinnings, where beauty, desire and dreams are solely devoted to cause happiness. The ubiquity of his Freudian quest albeit never domesticated and ever possessing the power he had for modern beauty shows that felinity continues to permeate everyday dressing. It seems an afterthought, and perhaps an évidence to the monolith-like héros of all femmes that fashion modelled on Freud yet another season. Women, not models, walked his Spring Summer 2015, rounded, en chair, complex, androgynes and six-foot too: Amber Valletta (40), Esther de Jong (40), Kirsten Owen (43) and Malgosia Bela (37) brought long silk dresses, double-breasted blazers, sheer mesh tops and ‘60s style mini skirts alive. It felt the Neo era of the Robes de style. The collection is just crack!

Allow me: in Lanvin’s 125th year, the stand-in for Madame Shaw-Lan Wang is already celebrated as a high-profile cultural presence because she embraced the tenets of his fashion philosophy – ornemental ease. Lanvin reported sales results for the second quarter and six months of 2014. For the quarter, the company reported sales of €15.4 million against €15.4 million for the same period a year ago. For the six months, the company reported sales of €30.4 million against €33.8 million for the same period a year ago.

Craving perfection has never been the pursuit of a Lanvin dress. And neither do the women Alber dresses. Emotion sells. From 18 to 81.

Photos by GORUNWAY.COM | L’ÉDITOR