Steidlville

“It’s not about the front or back of a dress. It’s about what’s in between...the human being, the person.” Alber Elbaz

In March 2002, Alber Elbaz debuted his first collection for the house of Lanvin, and one decade later, the oldest label in Paris has become synonymous with the designers nuanced fabric work and spirited take on the modern female. Alber Elbaz, Lanvin is the story behind this story, and the images in this book move from the atelier to the runway to show us the people behind the collection.

These images juxtapose the singularity of Elbaz’s creations with the multiplicity of their source material: miles of cloth are cut down to a yard, hundreds of buttons are reduced down to one. Lanvin guides us through the ins and outs of couture fabrication, and we see the vast array of materials needed to create one, perfect dress. In a seeming paradox, raw textiles move from the warehouse to the studio, where Elbaz’s team administers the finest details by hand. Notions of mechanical production rub up against these unique designs, which we come to see as a distillation not just of materials, but also ideas.

From the preliminary sketches taked up in the drawing room to final patterns stacked on the studio floor, the 400 photographs, in this gilded monograph take us behind the scenes, illustrating the scope of Elbaz’s vision and creative collaboration. Lanvin offers itself as a pleasurable act of voyeurism but also as an ode to the skilled artists who render Elbaz’s fabric confections in needle and thread.