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Lanvin F/W 2012

Art / Architecture / Design / Fashion

Lanvin

Fall/Winter 2012

Lanvin’s Fall/Winter 2012 runway show was a celebratory affair, marking the tenth anniversary of creative director Alber Elbaz’s stellar tenure at the helm of the French brand, with a season that read more as a ‘best of’ the designer’s decade of iconic collections.

Posted January 30th, 2020 By Colby Mugrabi

In true Elbaz fashion, the show opened with a parade of vibrant, structured dresses and monochromatic skirt suits finished with flared ruffles and body enhancing pleats. As the collection progressed, hemlines got shorter and fabrication techniques more elaborate. Black leather, rich velvet and fur outerwear were aplenty, as were rich brocades and heavily embellished cocktail dresses. If broken into three parts, the final chapter of the collection was a cornucopia of Elbaz’s greatest hits in eveningwear, with a return to the vibrant pallet that opened the show, as well as dreamy florals, lush textures, fur detailing and plenty of decorative lace.

The beauty of Alber Elbaz’s vision for Lanvin is epitomized not only through his trademark designs, but token techniques in styling, applying a ‘more-is-more’ mentality while always remaining on the right side of ‘ too extreme’. For Fall/Winter 2012, this philosophy was explored through the collection’s chunky bijoux – often baring reference to the surrealist jewelry designed by late Spanish painter Salvador Dali – bright leather gloves, vibrant stoles and chunky accessories. After decades of working in fashion, Alber finally found his creative voice at Lanvin, and it is these types of collections that prove so beautifully.