Lanvin Joins Forces With Pronounce on Ribbon

SHANGHAI — After making headlines as the first Chinese luxury group to go public on Wall Street, Lanvin Group‘s flagship brand Lanvin unveiled a capsule collection with Pronounce, a seven-year-old Chinese fashion label designed by Yushan Li and Jun Zhou.

Speaking exclusively with WWD, Li said the collaboration stemmed from an exploration of the brand’s classic ribbon design.

“We started working on the collection during Shanghai lockdown,” said Li. “We looked at a lot of the archival pieces designed by Jeanne Lanvin and Alber Elbaz and decided to interpret the ribbon in a way that we are good at, with swiftly hand-drawn prints.”

The result is a capsule collection that consists of wool sweaters and scarfs filled with hand-drawn hearts morphed from Pronounce’s signature infinite loop motif and resembling bunny ears, just in time for the year of the rabbit in 2023.

“We wanted the drawing style to feel a little artsy, a bit Parisian. It’s also a tiny homage to Alber Elbaz, a designer I admire,” Li added.

The collection hit Lanvin stores worldwide on Thursday. The campaign for the capsule collection will feature talent reality-show stars Caelan Moriarty, Chinese hip-hop star Lil Ghost and popular Chinese rock band Mandarin’s drummer An Yu.

Li said the capsule collection was also an opportunity to share Pronounce’s production with Lanvin’s China product team.

“They were very curious about our knitwear treatments and exploring the technical side of things. It’s a technique we developed over the years, which includes intensive post-processing that gives the garment a layered texture and a technique featured in our hero product,” said Li.

The Pronounce capsule follows a slew of collaborations aimed at adding street cred to the storied French luxury house. This year Lanvin has dropped capsule collections with Fila, the DC comic “Batman,” streetwear brands Gallery Dept. and Atlanta-based fashion boutique A Ma Maniére.

After Fosun Group, the Chinese conglomerate that also owns the French resort group Club Med, acquired Lanvin in 2018, the brand began to operate under a “dual engine strategy,” assembling a China-based design and product team that ran in parallel to its headquarters in Paris.

In 2021, Lanvin hired Chinese designer Calvin Luo to work as its design consultant for China-related projects, but according to Luo, the partnership ended early this year.

According to Lanvin Group’s 2022 interim results, global sales for Lanvin grew 117 percent to 64 million euros compared to the same time last year. Revenues in the European and North American markets recorded 201 percent and 235 percent growth, respectively, outperforming the Asian market.

Reports /TrainViral/