New York Whether it's a bottle of perfume or a couture dress, Lanvin designer Alber Elbaz pays painstaking mind to every detail. The scent has to be light, but not too light, he says. The bottle shape fluid, but not too round.
The color and label accessible but not common. It's not a formula, it's a feeling. "To me it is all the same, design is design," Elbaz said at an event introducing his latest fragrance, Rumeur.
"To do it you have to think, and you have to feel." Elbaz is not what one expects of a powerful fashion designer. He is self-conscious about his looks and nervous about his designs.
He's neither suave nor glamorous, dressed in a black suit, oversized pink bow-tie, Buddy Holly glasses and beat up brown loafers with no socks. But since landing the Lanvin job in 2001, he has made a name with designs known as wearable, simple and feminine similar to the sporty, casual character of Lanvin's 1920s outfits. The name "Rumeur" comes from the archives of the house, founded in the late 1800s by Jeanne Lanvin.
But Elbaz says it is the perfect mix of today's obsession with tabloid media and French charm. The perfume is light and flowery and features magnolia, white roses, jasmine, orange blossom and lily of the valley among its ingredients. The round bottle with a square bottom mirrors the design house label: a gold emblem of a mother and child.
"It's very light and friendly," he said of the scent. "I think in our fashion business I am known as 'a woman-friendly designer.' I love women.
I have always been asked if I have a muse, but every woman I know is a muse." These days, Elbaz can count among his muses Nicole Kidman, Kate Moss, Sofia Coppola and Chole Sevigny. In his tenure as designer, he has resurrected the name of Lanvin, recalling the heyday of the 1940s when the house stood alongside Chanel and Balenciaga as top design dogs.
Elbaz says he focuses on emotion; he sees how much tougher it is to be a woman today than a man, and he hopes his designs reflect a woman's struggle. News-Leader.com is pleased to be able to offer its users the opportunity to make comments and hold conversations online.
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com Terms of Service. Infancy is best time to begin signing New York Whether it's a bottle of perfume or a couture dress, Lanvin designer Alber Elbaz pays painstaking mind to every detail.
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