Welcoming Peter Copping to Lanvin—A Studio Visit With Fashion’s Newest Most Experienced Hand

Copping at work.

Photographed by Benjamin Malapris

A first glimpse at the women’s collection shows a lot of elegantly constructed daywear: drop-waist coats, cabans, and narrow, long-line skirts, some in black leather. “I think I’m known as a ‘feminine’ designer. I like a pencil skirt—long, to just above the ankle, with a heel feels fresh to me.” Men will be in for treats such as gorgeously floppy shirts which appear to be pinstriped but are actually collaged from vertical strips (in homage to Lanvin’s love of ribbon.) He’s working on parachute-silk pieces inspired by Katharine Hamnett’s 1980s collections—but also a modern, more decorative and embellished eveningwear. “Because now we’ve got Timothée Chalamet, all that’s completely changed for menswear.”

Over in Jeanne Lanvin’s office, Copping is pulling down books from her library. She collected books on 19th century French fashion, folk costume, and art from all over the world. Other shelves are stacked with fabrics brought back from her trips to India and Egypt. “I mean, you see where she got so many of her silhouettes and ideas from,” Copping exclaims. “I don’t want sound pretentious or anything, but when I’m here in her office, and you see what she looked like and what excited her, I really feel like somehow I’m on the same page. The things that would get her going are completely the same thing for me.”

To be clear, it doesn’t look at all like we’re going to see a Roaring Twenties collection—but there’s a new feeling of energy and positivity in the air around here that fashion can really do with more of right now. Jeanne Lanvin will only be present in the set Copping and his team have meticulously researched. “Blue was a fetish color for her. She had her apartment and office designed in 1922 by the great Deco-era interior decorator Armand-Albert Rateau. Her bedroom is in Musée Arts Decoratif, and they opened it up for us. They had the original fabric of the chairs, conserved—all faded to this beautiful powdery blue, which we color-matched. It’s become the inspiration for the show space. The past, but as it is now. I thought that’s a nice way of thinking about it.”

Peter Copping’s Lanvin debut is Sunday, January 26 at 8 pm in Paris.