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?

Lanvin. Source: Google

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.”

British Vogue, June 2017. Source: Google

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.

Jeanne Lanvin (1867-1946). Source: Google

Lanvin. Source: Google

It is a pure iconoclasm of creativity and heritage, what actually makes fashion be a fashion in contradiction to a pure commercial project.

Fitting. Source: Google

Is the enchanting epoch of Lanvin, one of France’s last major independent fashion brands, irrevocably gone? Who is next?