Travelling and traversing, escape and escapades - the Spring 2022 Lanvin collection by creative director Bruno Sialelli explores exploration, the idea of travel, our wanderlust to view the world. Showcased once again through motion images - a filmic short which, like a music video, gives a taste of the ideology behind a creative outing - the collection itself is a trip, real or imaginary, nostalgic or anticipatory. It transports.
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Those emotions and intentions mingle: the collection itself glances backwards, journeying into memories of the 1990s - a formative period of modern fashion - and to the archives of Lanvin. It also references the glamour of travel in the past, the aspirational style dubbed the ‘jet - set’, the notion of travel as an indulgence, an extravagance, an occasion. Lanvin reinvents the 1970s Lanvin ‘JL’ monogram: drawn from the archive, it is redrawn, updated for today as the JL 3-D, with a modernist feeling - like an architectural detail. As a print or jacquard it is used in optical play, also adorning accessories and luggage, like the accoutrements of travellers past, and future.
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Travel blurs seasons: clothes cover different terrains and locales, different climates and intentions. Silks mix with denims, scuba jerseys with organzas and chiffons, for him and her. Matte or gloss, fabric can subvert the attitudes and characters of the clothing, challenging and provoking.There is a sense of the former formality and anticipation of travel - polished looks evocative of the 1960s, tailoring, and the precious embroideries and embellishment characteristic of Lanvin - but they mix with the mood of MTV, the feel of surfer guys and girls, off duty and in action. The collection travels geographically, through periods, but also through sensibilities, from fo rmal to casual, a map of moods.
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The surfer is sometimes adorned with pieces from a Lanvin art collaboration: works from Raymond Pettibon’s Surfers series dec orate garments, simultaneously evocative of wild waves but also urban gallery walls, an aesthetic double-speak. The innate technicality of surfing and scuba combines with mountaineering - Lanvin roams. Detailing drawn from these extreme sports is used to create practical and stylish pieces, hybridizing tailoring: drawstrings, pocketing, waterproof detailing, transformative garments, UV protective layers. They adapt to an ever-shifting, always-dynamic modern wardrobe.
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Lanvin’s home is Paris: this travelogue exports the values and signatures of the oldest Parisian fashion house to different c orners of the world, expressing a style that is quintessentially Lanvin. This includes both Jeanne Lanvin, and her successors - micro-florals and couture silhouettes reflect the mid-century work of Antonio Castillo, contemporary of Balenciaga and Dior, the Lanvin logo an evolution of that created by Jules- François Crahay in the 1970s. This heritage is another trip - it marks the journey of the house since its birth in 1889. Expressing an idea of Lanvin that travels through both space and time, fabrics are frequently precious, colors delicate and feminine - pastel shades that seem bleached by the sun or lightened by water, but also echo Lanvin’s signature 1920s hues.
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Those colors, these approaches, unify men and women. Lanvin’s women are Swans, Truman Capote’s jet-set society idols; the men are music stars or cinematic heroes for a MTV generation, in oversized tailoring in these unexpected, ice-cream shades. The collection’s key accessories are travel-inspired monogram totes and weekenders, for voyager, and the neo-classic ’22; handbag, named after Lanvin’s historical Parisian flagship at 22 rue du Faubourg Saint- Honoré. Every journey, after all, must include a homecoming.
