Lanvin

Jeanne Lanvin opened a millinery shop at 16 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in 1889, when she was 22. Hats gave way to dresses for her daughter Marguerite, then to womenswear, and by the 1920s the house occupied a compound of buildings on the same street with a staff of more than 800. The signature color, a deep ultramarine known as Lanvin blue, was reportedly drawn from a Fra Angelico fresco; the mother-and-daughter emblem derives from a photograph of Jeanne and Marguerite taken around 1907. Lanvin is the oldest French couture house still trading, predating Chanel, Dior and Balenciaga by decades.

After Jeanne Lanvin's death in 1946 the house changed hands repeatedly. Designers including Claude Montana, Dominique Morlotti and Cristina Ortiz passed through before Alber Elbaz took over in 2001 and gave Lanvin a decade and a half of commercial and critical revival. Elbaz left in October 2015. Bouchra Jarrar lasted two seasons, Olivier Lapidus less than a year, and the pattern of brief tenures became a talking point in the French press.

Shanghai-based Fosun acquired a controlling stake in 2018 and folded the brand into what became Lanvin Group, which listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker LANV in December 2022. The portfolio also holds Sergio Rossi, Wolford, St. John Knits and Caruso. Lanvin Group reported first-half 2026 revenue of €101 million and has described the period as one of ongoing transformation, with margin improvement cited on its earnings calls even as sales have declined.

The house continues to show at Paris Fashion Week and sells women's and men's ready-to-wear, leather goods, footwear and fragrance through its own e-commerce and wholesale partners including NET-A-PORTER, Nordstrom and SSENSE. Its Curb sneaker, introduced in 2021, has become the most visible product in search traffic, a shift from the ribbon-trimmed dresses and grosgrain-tied ballet flats of the Elbaz years. [edit]