Lanvin is restructuring its direction. Starting with the pre-collection you see in these pictures, the house is rethinking its strategy for products across categories and building a comprehensive wardrobe for the contemporary woman and man. That sort of marketing jargon isn’t what you’d expect from a designer, and sure enough, Creative Director Bruno Sialelli wasn’t present during an appointment in Paris the morning after the men’s shows. “He’s still very much part of this reset and aligned with the creative approach,” the brand’s Deputy General Manager Siddhartha Shukla explained. The pre-collection— which reflects the direction Sialelli will expand on going forward— was designed by the Lanvin studio.
During his time at Lanvin, Sialelli—who joined the house in early 2019—has gradually built a hyper-glamorous expression founded in the Art Deco codes of Jeanne Lanvin. If his cocktail-centric womenswear has catered to a segment of established and (newly) rich ladies, his whimsical but sexy menswear has perhaps appealed more to their sons. This pre-collection suggests that Lanvin will align its men’s and women’s wardrobes in both age and audience going forward. The key word here is “radical chic,” said Shukla: a subdued approach to glamour, that aims to gently express the gilded animation of Jeanne Lanvin through functional adornment such as buttons and clasps, which is also a way of creating signifiers that aren’t logos.
Notably, this collection hadn’t been designed with Lanvin’s archive silhouettes in mind—except for some takes on the charmeuse—but from new ideas of shapes and cuts. On the women’s side, this quieter Lanvin materialized in daywear that maintained a considered balance between dressed-up and dressed-down: an unstructured and totally relaxed pleated duck egg charmeuse dress, a sporty red cashmere sweater dress with a deconstructed angular back, and a white inside-out, fluffy fil-coupé dress. A tweed coat and a camel trapeze coat had a timeless sense of chic about them, and obviously, slimline tuxedos in grain de poudre oozed luxury. When it came to fulfilling the market categories, a daisy print pajama top with a matching relaxed skirt and a technical jersey tracksuit made it into the offering.
The almost minimalist new approach painted something of a contrast to previous collections. It was reflected in the men’s department, which had been stripped of its cute, romantic sex appeal save for the fat-laced chunky trainers that continue to be a bestseller. The new Lanvin man felt more similar to that of Lukas Ossendrijver’s tenure: formal and sophisticated, with a twist. He wore double-face cashmere overcoats, mohair suits with hidden elastic waistbands in slim, classic, or oversize cuts, and banker-style monk shoes. Like the womenswear, it was all very tasteful and hard to fault. Come September’s co-ed runway show, it will be interesting to see how Sialelli interprets this new, less eccentric direction.
