The brief bow that Lanvin’s owner Shaw-Lan Wang took at the end of the show on Thursday night was a bit premature. The collection, which was created by the in-house design team and lead by Chemena Kamali — who only spent a handful of days with Alber Elbaz before his surprise departure— wasn’t anywhere close to the level of craftsmanship, storytelling or female-friendly designs that Elbaz gave to this house.
What appeared instead was a lineup that was hedging its bets. It was concurrently a ghost of what the house once was in the use of chiffon ruffles, the plissé skirts, patent leather trench coats and colorful statement furs. At the same time, it was trying to bring something new to the table. This was most clearly felt in the new roomy proportions, which sadly looks ill-fitting rather then fresh.
Honestly the only way the Lanvin brand is really going to be able to make any headway in the future is by almost fully eliminating any reference to its recent past and its much loved former designer. One of the reason’s why the Gucci relaunch worked so well, even if it was a serious risk, was because it was so extremely different from what came before it.
Kamali and the design team are going to have to reach far back to find original codes of the house on which to build its new future. Or the brand can take a page out of Riccardo Tisici or Jonathan Anderson’s playbook and reinvent the label from scratch.
As anyone in fashion will tell you, walking in the middle of the sartorial road is a very dangerous place to be.