Next year Lanvin celebrates its 130th anniversary. It will be a milestone marked by recent commotion: after Alber Elbaz’s departure in 2015, Bouchra Jarrar took up residency at the house for only two seasons before Olivier Lapidus replaced her just a week before his debut collection in September.

Olivier Lapidus

The dresser presented his second collection for Lanvin in a strictly total black space in the historic Place Vendome. On the catwalk, fluid dresses, perfecto jackets and bustier dresses tinged with vibrant shades of orange, yellow and red that alternate with long, pleated, black dresses and midnight blue coats and leggings – a collection that reinterprets the fabulous 80s with a new and fun approach that will surely bring an esprit de bonheur to Lanvin fans’ wardrobe.

Lengths are midi and long. Colours include purple, black, blue, organge and light blue. Materials feature silk, wool, knits, nylon,leather, jais and crystals. Long, fluid dresses alternate with biker jackets to be worn with leggings and slim trousers. Accessories include long necklaces, python boots, patent leather pumps and fringes shoulder bags.

In his second collection for the house, he aimed straight for the future, enlisting American tech artist Krista Kim to collaborate on prints and degrade informed by her paintings, backing it up with embroideries and a soundtrack inspired by the longer and shorter lines of Morse Code.

If there’s a future where dress codes have fused and glamour and sportswear are one and the same, Lapidus has little to worry about as far as sales go.

Designers are currently coming up with numerous ways of interpreting the time of transition in which we find ourselves, questioning if early cinematic wardrobe prophecies – Kubrick, Star Trek, etc. – might pan out. For Lapidus, it meant a literal merger of codes, like a sporty scuba made in silk and transformed into one of the dresses that made up his string of lean, gleaming silhouettes.

He credited that balance to the “smooth and strong fabrics” used by Jeanne Lanvin herself, noting that balance is everything.

“There’s a huge street and sportswear thing going on, and I think the next step is to integrate that with something very sophisticated. Cocktail-wear today can be influenced by sportswear,” he argued.

“This is how I feel, but still you have to balance it and it’s difficult. Like a cook, you don’t want to put in too much of one thing.” While largely evening-centric, many of the looks Lapidus proposed had an ultimately realistic sensibility about them, like an oversized knitted rollneck sculpturally tucked into a tailored cobalt blue trouser. Lanvin has always had an element of what-women-wear, and in his less ambitious designs Lapidus managed to nail that. “Sport/classic, luxury/cool,” he mused. “There’s a contradiction in today’s woman. She wants to retain tradition but she wants to be high-tech. I feel like women today want to mix everything.” If the women around the fashion landscape are anything to go by, the contemporary dresser wants nothing more than really great tailoring. If Lapidus continues down that path, his Lanvin won’t look bad for 130.

Lanvin is locally represented by Chemimart Ltd. For trade enquiries, call 2149 22112.

(Content provided by Chemimart)