Lanvin shares its contemporary vision for men's tailoring

By

Dominique Muret

Published
Jan 22, 2018

This Sunday, Lanvin Homme presented an inventive collection for Fall/Winter 2018-19, renewing the classic menswear wardrobe with pieces that cannot help but seduce today's tactile, globetrotting clientele. To show off his hybrid garments, creative director Lucas Ossendrijver chose a setting halfway between nature and technology, sending his models down a runway that cut through a forest of spotlights and lamps bristling on metal stems. 

"Everything is very easy and very wearable", emphasized the designer, whose starting point for this collection was "the least loved piece in menswear at the moment, namely the suit". Thus, deconstructed, slashed and dissected, the classic suit was recast into sportswear-inspired pieces or redefined by a wide range of new details. 

Menswear fabrics par excellence, such as tweed and typical woollen check flannel were omnipresent, but mixed with nylon and other technical fabrics, or used in unexpected sportswear pieces, such as a hooded cape that was completely open at the sides and decorated with straps and rivets. 

A large chest pocket was grafted onto a classic jacket, while coats and parkas were also very practically equipped with pockets of all shapes and sizes: patch, piped, zipped, with and without flaps. Trousers also featured an extra side pocket on the right leg, perfect to slip a smartphone into. 

Waistcoats, which often looked a little like bulletproof vests when transformed into padded gilets or closed at the sides, stood out among this ultra-comfortable men's wardrobe. Sometimes they were reworked in an English banker fabric, or offered up as a multi-pocketed hunter's gilet. They also appeared in more classic versions, such as a waistcoat that was incorporated into a three-piece suit but redesigned with a system of straps at the back. 

Asymmetric pullovers, looking as though they were being pulled to one side, and cardigans which buttoned up diagonally gave the collection a feel of imperceptible imperfection. 

"Just like suits, which are sort of a camouflage which allows men to melt into the crowd and into a function, I wanted to create a bit of a vague silhouette, but open," Lucas Ossendrijver explained. The black collar of a beige parka-gilet opened to frame the garment, while elsewhere, the designer toyed with his idea of camouflage through leaf prints. 

Everything had been thought out with precision and accuracy, producing extremely well crafted – even handmade – pieces, such as a hand-painted shearling sweater. 

As for the future of the luxury label, owned by Taiwanese billionaire Shaw-Lan Wang, and currently facing critical financial problems, it does not seem to be a source of too much concern for Lucas Ossendrijver. "I'm very positive about the future of the house. I have nothing more to say," he stated.