Lanvin Haute Couture S/S 1992 Paris

[YohjiAddict]

By Carrie Donovan
Feb. 23, 1992

Claude Montana, in a brilliant tour de force for the house of Lanvin, showed that he could soften the sharp edges of his familiar shapes to create more feminine, completely modern clothes.

Claude Montana, meanwhile, was contemplating his future. Kalman Ruttenstein, Bloomingdale's fashion director, dined with Montana the night after his triumphant show and abrupt departure from Lanvin. "I thought he would be upset," Ruttenstein said, "but not at all. He talked about what a wonderful learning experience the couture had been, and had thoughts of continuing to work with made-to-measure clothes in a way that would express his talent for 'simplicity in a luxurious manner.' "

Unspoken was the message that Montana clearly intends to take his new, softer approach into his own fall '92 ready-to-wear collection, which will be shown next month. Montana has long been known in ready-to-wear for his superb way of crafting clothes with an edge, giving women of any age a snappy, up-to-date shape. Though most of Montana's Lanvin couture lengths were still above the knee (a length Lagerfeld now tellingly refers to as "middle-aged"), Montana said he sees young, chic women in clubs and on the streets wearing "the long look -- so it has to follow for fashion in general."

For women who follow fashion, the Paris couture spring season was a seminal one. It suggested that a lithe body can look new in a perilously close-fitting shape with a hemline below the knee. More important, it proposed that a woman looking divinely in her prime is not necessarily in her teens. Now that is a real breakthrough.

NY Times

Bellazon

 

[YohjiAddict]

Bellazon

 

[YohjiAddict]

By Suzy Menkes, International Herald Tribune
Feb. 4, 1992

The latest shock waves in couture follow a season in which Claude Montana left the house of Lanvin, where he had been for two years. He had finally got into his stride after a sticky start, and feels distressed that the larger problems that Lanvin has about refocusing its image and adjusting the couture house to the 1990s have been placed on his shoulders.

"I had fulfilled my part of the contract and I cannot be blamed for Lanvin's strategy," Montana said Saturday. "I learned a lot and I might like to continue in couture, but it is too early to think about it."

Lanvin's president, Michel Pietrini,whose abrupt dismissal of Montana after a well-received collection has been badly viewed in the fashion world, said Sunday that he has not yet decided whether Dominique Morlotti, Lanvin's new designer, would present a couture collection in July. Morlotti's women's ready-to-wear line for autumn-winter will be shown in Paris on Feb. 27, in advance of the March fashion shows. Morlotti says that he wants to produce a streamlined and modern ready-to-wear, based on tailoring, in the spirit of Giorgio Armani. Althought Pietrini has suggested that Morlotti's considerable experience in the theater would enable him to dream up a couture style, this has not yet been decided.

"I genuinely in my heart do not yet know if we will present couture in July, and I won't know for five or six weeks," said Pietrini. "Claude Montana has an immense talent. But I have suffered so much during the 14 months that I have been at Lanvin over the lack of cohesion between couture and ready-to-wear. My first objective is a high-quality ready-to-wear."

 

[Deleted member 167090]

If I remember well, some designers have blalantly ripped off Montana's ideas from this collection.

 

[Maayan]

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