In 1889, three years before Vogue was launched in New York, a young woman named Jeanne Lanvin established—on 300 francs of credit—a house in her name. She started as a milliner, meanwhile designing lovely, practical dresses for her daughter. Soon her clients took notice, demanding frocks for their offspring, and then for themselves, planting the seeds for what would become one of the most storied and continually relevant brands. A mother and daughter form the house’s deco logo, and mother-daughter dressing was one of the specialties of the house, known for designs that were always feminine and fairly classical.
In the twenties, Lanvin became nearly synonymous with the full-skirted, romantic robe de style look. Fast-forward to 2001, and the name Lanvin has been inseparable from that of Alber Elbaz, the bow-tie-wearing Israeli designer who shares the rose-tinted outlook with its founder. That Elbaz had made Lanvin “the fashion world’s most wanted label,” wrote Sally Singer in Vogue, is the result of his ability to prove “that vulnerability and modesty are not antithetical to chic.”
Photo: (left to right) Baron de Meyer, Vogue, August 15, 1919; Illustration: A. E. Marty, Vogue, August 15, 1926.1/11After founding the house and becoming a sought-after milliner, Jeanne Lanvin, reported Vogue, “put her enthusiasm and talent into designing costumes for her little girl; this was the beginning of Maison Jeanne Lanvin. . . . The little gowns and coats she designed for her own “petite" were so fetching that admiring mammas who saw them insisted on the same models for their little daughters. Soon the elder sisters followed, then the mammas themselves.”
Photo: (left to right) Illustration: Eric, Vogue, March 1, 1934; Illustration: Pierre Brissaud, Vogue, April 15, 19232/11“I act on impulse and believe in instinct,” Jeanne Lanvin (second from left) told Vogue in 1934. “My dresses aren’t premeditated. I am carried away by feeling, and technical knowledge helps me make my clothes become a reality.”
Photo: (left to right) Illustration: A. E. Marty, Vogue, August 15, 1926; Edward Steichen, Vogue, May 1, 19273/11In the twenties, the tubular, drop-waisted silhouette was rivaled only by the full-skirted, romantic robe de style, or picture gown, of which, Vogue wrote, Lanvin is “the acknowledged master, having always given it a sympathetic and authoritative expression.”
Right: Marjorie Willis in Lanvin
Artwork by Christian Bérard, Vogue, October 1, 19374/11“Madame Lanvin is not a partisan of abrupt changes,” wrote Vogue. “The logical development of ideas and the direct relation of one collectsion to its successor are her ideas."
Illustration: Rene Bouet-Willaumez, Vogue, October 1, 1939.5/11“Lanvin is one of the few remaining dressmakers of the classic type who seek their inspiration at the great sources of art—in cathedrals and cities, in museums and picture-galleries. Her famous blue was originally inspired by the blues of Fra Angelico.”
Photo: Henry Clarke, Vogue, April 1, 19606/11Dresses as “romancy as sonnets . . . from the Lanvin Castillo collectsion.”
Photographed by David Bailey, Vogue March 1, 19687/11Vogue dubbed Jeanne Lanvin the “fairy godmother of the jeune fille.” This dress, with its “pinafore rim of fin-fanned ruffles,” worn by Catherine Deneuve, shows the house upholding the tradition in the youth-centric sixties.
Photographed by Mario Testino, Vogue, December 2004.8/11“I don’t like formulas, I don’t like clothes that are rigid,” the house’s creative director, Alber Elbaz, told Vogue.
Raquel Zimmermann in Lanvin by Alber Elbaz.
Photographed by David Sims, Vogue, July 2007.9/11Wearing Lanvin, Sofia Coppola told Vogue, is about “being dressed up but not making a big statement . . . womanly and sophisticated.”
Sasha Pivovarova in Lanvin by Alber Elbaz.
Photographed by Mario Testino, Vogue, April 2008.10/11In Alber Elbaz, the house of Lanvin discovered the founder’s kindred spirit—according to _Vogue’_s description of Madame who, the magazine observed, “keeps always to lines which are very simple and youthful, and . . . refuses to follow the mode in servile fashion when her artistic sense disapproves of it. In color, her taste is for the brilliant tones.”
Raquel Zimmermann in Lanvin by Alber Elbaz.
Photographed by Mario Testino, Vogue, May 2010.11/11“I think the purpose of fashion is to cause happiness,” Elbaz told Vogue. “Beauty can be modern. I’m in research for beauty, desire, and dreams.”
Sarah Jessica Parker in Lanvin by Alber Elbaz, 2010.
