{"id":1023,"date":"2010-08-01T02:19:05","date_gmt":"2010-08-01T00:19:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/?p=1023"},"modified":"2025-10-23T15:18:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T13:18:25","slug":"letranger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/1023\/letranger\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucas Ossendrijver: L’etranger"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Photography by Vassilis Karidis<\/h5>\n

Lanvin shows are a joy. Everything this venerable French house \u2013 pardon, maison \u2013 puts its stamp on, from the set to the music to the catering (not to mention the clothes), seems conceived to convey a sense of happiness, frivolity and legeresse, with an unmistakably French quirkiness. A few seasons ago, it served framboise and cassis macaroons \u2013 oh, those hyper-calorific, Technicolorful, Marie Antoinette, cream-filled meringues from paradise that generate the eternal stampede of super-sized tourists outside the Ladur\u00e9e shops on rues Royale and Bonaparte \u2013 that were exactly the same shade of pink and purple as the clothes unleashed on the catwalk a few minutes later. Another season, the theme was the circus: sweets and drinks were served from a striped tent. Yet another season, it was cheesy disco and mirror balls \u2013 at 10am! PartiaI as I am to macaroons (indeed, to the French p\u00e2tisserie in its entirety), I confess that what gives me the greatest joy at each and every Lanvin show is the finale. Men\u2019s shows are the best. Here you have creative director Alber Elbaz alongside designer Lucas Ossendrijver, together on the catwalk, taking the bow. You should see: they are Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Where Elbaz is round, short and clad in a Chaplinesque, all-black ensemble of floppy jacket and rolled-up trousers, Ossendrijver is tall and lanky, all jeans, unpressed shirts and skinny jackets. Both shy and a tad goofy, they\u2019re as far from the designer-as-Hollywood-star \u00e0 la Tom Ford as can possibly be: a breath of fresh air. \u201cMe and Alber, we are totally complementary,\u201d says the softly-spoken Ossendrijver. \u201cWe are both similar and different. Work-wise, we function together perfectly: we talk a lot at each and every step of the collection\u2019s development, but we need not be together all of the time. In fact, we don\u2019t even share a workspace. We can see each other from the window \u2013 Alber\u2019s studio is right across the street from mine\u201d.<\/p>\n

We are at the Lanvin headquarters on rue Boissy D\u2019Anglais, in Paris\u2019 Haussmannier-thanthou 8th arrondissement. Ossendrijver\u2019s slender features \u2013 elongated face and limbs, and not too much flesh on the bone \u2013 suggest he is a man of sober habits; someone accustomed to living with less rather than more. Our meeting confirms that he is. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s very important to get rid of one\u2019s own attachment to things,\u201d he says, on the verge of a political statement. \u201cThis applies to design as it does to life. It\u2019s too easy to go too far; on the contrary, taking a step back and deciding when to stop can be rather daring! That\u2019s what really fascinates me.\u201d The set of our encounter \u2013 a wooden-floored, whitewashed room furnished only with two spartan chairs and a coffee table \u2013 reflects the designer\u2019s agenda of less-asmore. Heavy curtains of black velvet enclose the space on one side; airy windows let the natural light seep in from the other. It is strangely reminiscent of a monk\u2019s cell, albeit a cell in which one can gorge on macaroons to one\u2019s heart\u2019s content.<\/p>\n

Ossendrijver is dressed monastically in a navyblue jumper, light-blue Oxford shirt, dark-blue jeans and trainers \u2013 \u201cAll Lanvin,\u201d he says with a smile, promptly adding, \u201cWhich is rather rare.\u201d He is unassuming: there is little evidence of fashion egotism here. He has clearly not let the designer take over the man. His extreme reservation on personal matters only adds to the charm.<\/p>\n

It is a charm that is part of the very history of the house. Founded by Jeanne Lanvin in 1885, it is one of the oldest standing couture houses in Paris, as well as one of the very few that do not belong to a luxury conglomerate. As sartorially skilled as she was business-minded, Madame Lanvin founded an empire that spanned clothing, furniture and perfumes, and she was the first couturier \u2013 in 1924! \u2013 to introduce a men\u2019s line. But by 2001, when Alber Elbaz arrived from Yves Saint Laurent, the esteemed house was out of steam, despite a stellar era of Claude Montana-designed couture in the early 1990s. With a unique mix of chic and shabby, goof and glitz, the wickedly gifted Elbaz quickly established Lanvin as the pinnacle of female desirability and glamour. When, four years later, he decided to do the same for menswear, Elbaz picked Ossendrijver from Hedi Slimane\u2019s team at Dior Homme.<\/p>\n

It was a visionary appointment. Five years later, Ossendrijver\u2019s delicate take on masculinity \u2013 his vision is more about fragility and sensuality than muscular assertiveness \u2013 is increasingly seen as revolutionary. \u201cMy role as a designer is to help people see other possibilities,\u201d he explains. \u201cFashion can be a means of escape to be somebody else or, simply, a way to dream. At Lanvin we try to be as open \u2013 as non-exclusive \u2013 as possible. For me, Lanvin is first and foremost a state of mind. I want our men\u2019s stores to be seen as a luxury supermarket, with a bit of everything for everyone, no matter their body type.\u201d<\/p>\n

Openness, acceptance, inclusivity? That\u2019s not what fashion talk\u2019s usually about. Behind the industry\u2019s endlessly promoted ideals of uniqueness and exclusivity, there is the shadow of relentless homogenisation, culminating in strict body fascism. Not so, thank goodness, at Lanvin. It is all the more refreshing to hear from a designer who trained under the king of hysterical thinness. \u201cWorking with Hedi was great for me,\u201d Ossendrijver recalls fondly. \u201cFrom him I learned how to reach the extreme, and how to be extremely precise.\u201d Far from Dior\u2019s obsessive precision, Ossendrijver\u2019s own recipe balances controlled casualness and apparent mistakes with a rigorous foundation. \u201cThat, for me, is what French elegance is all about: mistakes!\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I started this project at Lanvin, I had this idea to create a small wardrobe. It all evolved naturally from there. Whatever we do, we do it to answer a need. Not some sort of market strategy. And this is probably what makes us so successful with such a biased demographic of men out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite having dramatically reinvented contemporary masculinity from head to toe, Ossendrijver is, by his own admission, simply a very good technical designer. He is less interested in grand ideas and theories than in putting his fabric where his form is, and finding practical solutions to everyday problems. It makes sense, coming from a man at first torn between fashion and architecture. \u201cI grew up in the Dutch countryside. For me, fashion was always some kind of dream. Only later, at design school, did I discover that I could make a living out of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI relish the immediacy of fashion,\u201d he continues. \u201cThe fact that you are constantly challenged to produce something new, and that the results are pretty fast. Fashion forces you constantly to question everything. Architecture, on the other hand, is very, very slow. That said, I am all for evolution, not revolution. I do not like newness and change for the sake of it: I like things to evolve gradually, organically, from one step to the next. I love working with the tailors, testing new techniques in the factories, choosing fabrics and developing fits. Above all, I love working with a close team: that\u2019s by far the best part of my job.\u201d His main workspace, though crammed with samples and assistants, is not in the least chaotic. \u201cMy team is tight and I have people from all ends of the earth. There are very few of us, but we are all very close. I want everybody to learn while we work. Which is why I make sure that even the interns stay with us for the whole cycle, from drawing the collection on paper to throwing it on the catwalk.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Ossendrijver speaks, he conveys a fascinating contradiction of warmth and detachment. He has managed to maintain a kind of outsiders\u2019 perspective on fashion, which is one reason his work is so special. Still, he is technical but not unemotional. \u201cThere is a lot of myself in what I do,\u201d he concludes. \u201cAfter all these years, I still feel a bit like a stranger here in Paris, but that is good. It gives me an angle. For me, the most important thing is to inject soul into everything I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

[br]<\/p>\n

Originally published in Dapper Dan<\/em>, Issue 01, March 2010. Styling by Nicholas Georgiou.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photography by Vassilis Karidis Lanvin shows are a joy. Everything this venerable French house \u2013 pardon, maison \u2013 puts its stamp on, from the set to the music to the catering (not to mention the clothes), seems conceived to convey a sense of happiness, frivolity and legeresse, with an unmistakably French quirkiness. A few seasons […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[38],"class_list":["post-1023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issue-01","tag-interviews"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QZgE-gv","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1023"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3312,"href":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions\/3312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dapperdanmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}