Jeanne Lanvin

Jeanne Lanvin's active fashion career lasted for 50 years from the 1890's up until the New Look following World War II. Jeanne Lanvin was born in 1867 in Brittany, France. She was the eldest of 10 children of a pair of Breton concierges. She first trained as a dressmaker at a house called Talbot and then as a milliner.

In 1890, Jeanne Lanvin decided to open a millinery shop in the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore. Whilst making hats there, she also made dresses for a younger sister as well as her daughter. Lanvin's clothes came to the attention of other mothers with daughters, who asked her to make dresses for them. So, in 1909, Jeanne began making dresses for sale and that is how her reputation began to grow.

Jeanne Lanvin made no distinction between women's and children's wear, the youthfulness of both being an extremely important aspect of 20th century fashion.

Demand by young women for her kind of clothes, later persuaded Jeanne Lanvin to open a couture house selling mother-daughter garments.
 

The Lanvin Logo

Paul Iribe, the famous illustrator, created the Logo for the house of Lanvin from a drawing by Jeanne of the bond between mother and daughter.

Her daughter became the Comtesse de Polignac, and continued to wear her mother's most beautiful gowns.

In 1913, Lanvin created her famous "robes de style" based on some 18th century designs. These small waisted, full skirted dresses remained popular for many years and were fore-runners of the New Look which Dior brought out just after World War II.

Influenced by Oriental styles in 1914, Jeanne Lanvin turned to exotic evening wear in Eastern-styles showing velvets and satins. During the 20's Lanvin also made a simple Chemise dress which later became the basic outline for the twenties. Over the following years, she introduced several very interesting developments. In 1921, a Riviera collection introduced Aztec embroidery. In 1922 a Breton suit appeared in the Lanvin collection. This comprised a gently gathered skirt, a short braided jacket with lots of small buttons and a big white organdy collar turning down over a red satin bow. A sailor hat topped the outfit.

In 1926 a menswear division was opened by the house of Lanvin, and so she became the first couturier to dress entire families. Her branches were opened in Nice, Cannes and Biarritz. Jeanne Lanvin also dressed film actresses such as Mary Pickford, Marlene Dietrich and Yvonne Printemps during the the 1920's and 1930's. She also had clients such as the Queens of Italy and Roumania, as well as many English princesses.

Jeanne Lanvin died at the age of 79 in 1946. Her daughter Marie-Blanche took over the running of the house, till she herself died in 1958.

Antonio del Castillo, a Spanish designer, joined Lanvin as designer during the year of 1950 and returned the house to great success. He remained there until 1962. In 1963 Jules-Francois Crahay, a Belgian designer, took over the reins of the house, and remained there until 1984. In 1982, Maryll Lanvin, the third generation of the Lanvin family, started designing for the house.

The Cosmetic giant L'Oreal then decided to acquire the house of Lanvin in 1990 and has appointed several designers thereafter.

During the 1990's, in addition to presenting his own collections, Claude Montana has also been designing for Lanvin. Giorgio Armani also decided to design for a while. From 1997 to 2001, Christina Ortiz was the chief designer for haute couture. From 1997 to 2001 Lanvin's ready-to-wear collections were being designed by ex-Versace, ex-Herve Leger designer Ocimar Versolato.

In August 2001 an investor group led by Shaw Lan Wang, a Taiwanese media baroness, took over the house of Lanvin. They appointed Israeli-born designer Alber Albaz as its new creative director. His first collection took place during Autumn 2002.
 

The Style of Jeanne Lanvin

Jeanne Lanvin's work was easily recognizable due to her skillful and very talented use of embroidery, and her fine craftsmanship. She also used a particular shade of blue very often, that it came to be called the "Lanvin Blue".

For Jeanne Lanvin, women were meant to wear clothes of unabashed feminity, in colours that were pretty, and whose shapes had a "young girl" look to them. She set the mood with narrow empire-waisted dresses and long trailing sleeves.

The fabrics that she used were silk, taffeta, velvet, silk chiffon, organza, lace, tulle, etc. She used a lot of free-flowing ribbons, ruffles, flowers, lace, mirrors, etc., and liked ornamentation such as applique, couching, quilting, parallel stitching, and embroidery. 



 

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