Iconoclasm of The Oldest Paris Fashion House
The sun has sunk below a cloud, after I saw the headline in Business of Fashion, “Olivier Lapidus Joins Lanvin Amid Plans to Make Brand ‘A French Michael Kors'”. WHAT?
My mind immediately flashed back to the interview with the former fashion director of British Vogue for 25 years Lucinda Chambers, which was courageously published by Vestoj. In particular I thought about the following quote:
“…If my shoots were really crappy… Oh I know they weren’t all good – some were crappy. The June cover with Alexa Chung in a stupid Michael Kors T-shirt is crap. He’s a big advertiser so I knew why I had to do it.”
Another throw back goes to November 2014, when Lidewij Edelkoort had just written her Anti_Fashion Manifesto. She mentions that marketing has taken over the power by manipulating creations, production and sales. Everything is about how to produce better figures instead of bringing out a better product or to generate a better culture.
Thus, from being a French luxury fashion house, founded by Jeanne Lanvin in 1889 and based on excellent craftsmanship, respectable heritage and intriguing creativity, Lanvin is about to become a jet-set luxury brand due to its dramatic fall in revenue. New investments do not seem to be on the shareholders’ agenda but a quick profit.
It is a pure iconoclasm of creativity and heritage, what actually makes fashion be a fashion in contradiction to a pure commercial project.
Is the enchanting epoch of Lanvin, one of France’s last major independent fashion brands, irrevocably gone? Who is next?