Lanvin Travels With Flamboyance
by Godfrey Deeny
Though it’s not the most important thing one can say about a high-end fashion label, it’s often the most revealing, even if two-sided, compliment. If one had to estimate which men’s fashion collection is going to be the most copied this coming Fall 2010, it’s a good bet it will be Lanvin, which unfurled a beautiful collection of quirky contemporary fashion Sunday, Jan. 24, in Paris.
Lanvin’s poetic clothing, from frayed seamed jackets to off-the-shoulder cool wool dusters, will appear in more toned-down versions all over the planet this fall, though no replica will ever rival the originals on view in the Palais de Tokyo contemporary art museum.
A sense of at-ease global traveler wafted through this collection, whether the chiffon pants with double side hems cut with a certain swagger, or the druids coats - chocolate hued front and flat Prussian gray back.
Lanvin certainly honed in on the biggest Paris phenomena this season, contrasting fabrics and colors in the same object. Take a pretty remarkable trench-coat, where the torso was made of craftily aged suede, while the arms came in a woven wool, with a finish almost like jute. There were even metal zips at the arm pits so you take the sleeves right off.
“We wanted to make clothes for fashion lovers, not fashion victims,” explained Lanvin’s creative director Alber Elbaz backstage after the show.
The house also boasted by far the best choice of footwear seen on the continent – like unique looking boots with bowling shoe feet and felt wool uppers, or Captain Kirk-goes-hiking boots, shiny leather below the ankle, technical nylon above.
It’s also been a European season almost completely devoid of sneakers, as if designers had decided that rubber soled footwear was the wrong way to confront the global crisis. They were also absent at Lanvin.
But what set this show apart was the sense of understated flamboyance, clothes in dark hues that whispered sophistication, which by wearing them confirmed that you were part of a exclusive aesthetic club.
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