Daily Front Row

2010 September 2

H&M Dresses Up With Lanvin

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Alber Elbaz
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(NEW YORK) Yes, the rumors are true—and die-hard chicsters should start camping out outside H&M locations maintenant. After a few days of teasing, H&M announced this morning that Lanvin would be the next luxury brand to create a collection for the fast fashion megastore. On November 20, women’s and men’s collections by Alber Elbaz and Lanvin menswear designer Lucas Ossendrijver will hit H&M sales floors in North America, with the collections landing worldwide on November 23.

Lanvin is the latest in a string of high-profile designer collaborations for the mass retailer, including Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney, Viktor & Rolf, Comme des Garçons, and Sonia Rykiel—most of which have sold out within minutes of the stores’ doors opening (remember what we said about camping out!). And though Alber-philes will remember his saying that he’d never go mass---he told The New Yorker last year: “I have a problem to do a collection that is a secondary line. I mean, you don’t want to be the stepsister. You want to be Cinderella. Show me one girl who wants to be the stepsister”---the designer isn’t eating his words. “H&M approached us to collaborate, and see if we could translate the dream we created at Lanvin to a wider audience, not just a dress for less," he said in a statement. "I have said in the past that I would never do a mass-market collection, but what intrigued me was the idea of H&M going luxury rather than Lanvin going public.”

The collection will be revealed in a video, which will debut at www.hm.com on November 2. And attention, New York-based Lanvin fans: we hear Alber, Lucas, et al will come to Gotham to fête the collection. Expect an over-the-top Alex de Betak affair…
EMILY GYBEN