Lanvin is trading experimentation for stability with new artistic director hire

Lanvin finally has a new artistic director over a year after Bruno Sialelli left the company in April of last year. On Thursday, the French luxury house announced the appointment of Peter Copping, formerly of luxury brands like Balenciaga and Oscar de la Renta.

It was an unusually lengthy transition process for a luxury brand. It took Gucci only two months to replace the departing Alessandro Michele with Sabato De Sarno, for example. The lack of strong creative leadership has led to a flat period for Lanvin and its parent company Lanvin Group. As of last summer, the brand’s sales were down 10%, and by the beginning of this year, the entire group’s revenue had grown only 1% from quarter to quarter.

Lanvin attempted to fill the void following Sialelli’s departure with a series of rotating creatives as part of a project it called Lanvin Lab. The first was a partnership with the rapper Future released last summer which had a follow-up collection that launched earlier this spring. A second collaboration, with conceptual artist Erwin Wurm, led to the creation of a 50-foot walking handbag statue that toured key Lanvin markets around the world. Neither project made an impression on investors, and Lanvin Group’s share price has fallen 25% since February. The last year has seen a number of executive shakeups through the group. Eric Chen and Huang Zhen replaced Joanna Cheng as CEO and chairman, respectively. And Wolford CEO Silvia Azzali was just replaced with Regis Rimbert this month.

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