Longchamp (Q4650)
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
French leathergoods company
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Longchamp |
French leathergoods company |
Statements
1980
company president
2006
ready-to-wear designer
range designer
Longchamp creative director Sophie Delafontaine is Parisian to the core, but from her very first show in Manhattan (for spring 2019), she has clearly been completely at home with the American bigger-is-better mentality. The locations she’s found for each of her presentations have been spectacular, but it will be difficult indeed to top the 25th floor of Hudson Commons, where guests gathered to take in the fall 2020 collection and a view so magnificent that it lent a cinematic feeling to the proceedings. To this reviewer, the walls of glass combined with the 1970s vibe of the clothes called to mind Halston’s Olympic Tower days. It’s interesting to note too that like the American designer, Delafontaine is moving from accessories into ready-to-wear. (Halston was first a milliner.)Though we’re only days into New York Fashion Week, references to the 1970s are piling up. Like today, the Me Decade was one of political and economic unrest. It was also a time of advancement for women, who started entering the workplace in larger numbers. Fashionwise, the ’70s was the era of sportswear, separates, and, yes, culottes. (Though today they seem to belong to 2019, when Hedi Slimane showed them at Celine.) All three of these signatures were present in Longchamp’s rather bougie collection.In keeping with its ’70s vibe, the strength of the fall lineup was in its individual pieces—i.e., the separates idea—as the full looks read a bit costumey. Longchamp is an accessories house first, and Delafontaine certainly delivered on the shoes and bags front. The boots with the silver ball hardware were newsy, but those with the stripe were timeless. The house’s most famous bag, Le Pliage, was taken to extremes, shrunk into a mini or blown up into grand proportions. The latter, in shiny patent, looked a bit like a portable John Chamberlain sculpture. Reimagined for the season were the Roseau model and what Delafontaine described as the house’s original It bag, which she’s dubbed the Longchamp 1980. All of these styles worked well with the midi length the creative director was running with for fall.“Even if the beginning of the year is a little bit difficult everywhere, I am super optimistic,” said Delafontaine, who communicated that feeling through color. Of note was a light blue silk dress with a colorful geometric inset that resembled one of Josef Albers’sHomage to the Squarepaintings, as well as a deep green shearling coat.
Making the grade were classic city pieces like the puffer coat and vest quilted with the Longchamp logo.
8 February 2020
Longchamp creative director Sophie Delafontaine designs for a city girl and is one herself. Since she’s started bringing her collection to New York, she’s picked some of the city’s most spectacular locations for her shows—and accessorized them with equally impressive front rows. For Spring, she invited guests to the Hearst Plaza at Lincoln Center, where Henry Moore’sReclining Figurebathes in the Paul Milstein Pool.Kaia Gerber opened in black nylon accessorized with what were described as “knitted boxing shoes” (i.e. stocking boot and sneaker hybrids). She strode so determinedly and quickly towards the water, one wondered if she’d walk through it. (She did not.) Delafontaine, however, waded through several different themes. Post-show, she explained that she was aiming for a mash-up of the ’70s and ’90s. It was “a mix between sporty and feminine, with a touch of hippie chic” she was after. On top of all that, the sunrise-to-sunset palette was inspired by desert explosions by Judy Chicago—fashion’s favorite artist of late—but reimagined, Delafontaine said, as “a color explosion in the city.” Phew.It was refreshing to see the designer step a bit away from the fringe-heavy, Anita Pallenberg rock chick look and take the collection in a newer direction. The house’s famous Le Pliage bag is made of nylon, but the sports angle was perhaps most strongly expressed via those boxing shoes. As Longchamp was first an accessories house, the smocked and goddess looks seemed less aligned with the brand’s heritage; Delafontaine’s use of leathers and suedes, on the other hand, felt spot-on. Foulard prints added a Parisienne touch. And then there were the mouthwatering bags. The house’s twenty-something Roseau carryall got a popping graphic makeover. There were mini bags galore, but none was more seductive than the miniaturized Le Pliage. Asked what she imagined a women might carry in it, Delafontaine replied: “A credit card, because you are always an independent woman; and your lipstick, because you are very feminine. What else do you need?” Touché.
7 September 2019
Longchamp made a splashy landing in the Financial District for Fall, presenting 40 looks on as many models, each of whom made her way down a runway-cum-aisle laid with a carpet inspired by one made by French interior and product designer Andrée Putman for the supersonic Concorde. Thus was the stage set for the theme of travel, with a soupçon of nostalgia.Studded black leather referenced the boldness of the ’80s, when markets were high and hems less so; long, printed dresses spoke of the bohemian ’70s. The collection closed with a shaggy white jacket that might have been an homage to a favorite furry black number often worn by Kate Moss, who once traveled by Concorde, and was today seated front row alongside Kendall Jenner, Longchamp’s “face.” Still, the boho vibe of the collection evoked an earlier icon of style, “sixth Rolling Stone” Anita Pallenberg. Not that she was named as an inspiration; for Fall, creative director Sophie Delafontaine wasn’t interested in a particular destination or person, but in movement itself. “I’m really here to make the woman self-confident,” she said preshow. “I think you can be very strong and stay very feminine.”Delafontaine isn’t out to cater to full-look fashion victims; rather she aims to give women versatile pieces that they can work into their wardrobes and use to play up their singular personalities. To drive that point home, she opted not to have one set beauty-and-hair look for the cast, in order to better celebrate the individuality of each model. This “piece-y” approach to wardrobing, garment as accent piece, essentially, makes sense for a brand that expanded from accessories into ready-to-wear. Talking about accessories, it’s easy to imagine many “types” longing for the mini version of Longchamp’s iconic Le Pliage bag, or the new Voyageuse, with its vanity-case silhouette, that comes in sizes suited for long- or short-haul “flights.” There was no turbulence in this collection, but neither were there flights of fancy. The quality, though, was definitely first-class. For example, Longchamp’s bold new logo, the LGP, which was inspired both by the Bauhaus movement and Manhattan’s geometric grid, appeared on leathers, as a jacquard, and was embroidered on tulle. This collection didn’t only deliver covetable, if safe, iterations of closet classics; looking at it from another plane, the show was a cross-cultural love fest.
It turns out that as much as American women admire “the natural, thoughtless elegance” of theParisienne, she in turn is energized by the diversity and freedom of New York City and it’s on-the-go women. Here, said Delafontaine, “I feel more in the middle of the world.”
9 February 2019
“Fringe!” said Poppy Delevingne to the assembled horde of photographers as she sat front row at Longchamp, shaking and shimmying the tassels that ran the length of her olive green suede boots, stopping a healthy expanse from the hem of her black minidress. She was in good company. A few seatmates down—past Soo Joo Park and Kendall Jenner, but before you got to Priyanka Chopra and Isabelle Huppert—sat a tawny-haired and tanned Kate Moss in fringe-y black leather, the strands almost as long as her skirt. Of course, all this swishing was but a precursor to what was on the runway minutes later.The message from Sophie Delafontaine, Longchamp’s creative director, was an ode to the free-spirited, lithe-legged mavericks of yore, from Anita Pallenberg to Veruschka, women who knew a thing or two about living life to the fullest and in the shortest and grooviest of clothes; in other words, those mythic creatures forever known as Rock Chicks. So who better to have sitting at your show then that patron saint of the three-chord thrash, Miss Moss? “Elegant, but with a touch of eccentricity—and wildness!” Delafontaine said backstage. “I am not designing for static women.”She was as good as her word. Everywhere you looked, suede, leather, and lace were worked with fringe, tiering, and hippie-trail graphic prints and stylized floral motifs which evoked Altamont and Santa Fe. It was a lively, loosened-up mix of sharp, abbreviated biker-ish jackets cut to skim above the waist, jaunty/tiny skirts, and pretty diaphanous dresses that billowed floorward, all in a palette of turquoise, brown, and purple. (CCing Margot Robbie: You just found the perfect wardrobe to play Sharon Tate in Quentin Tarantino’sOnce Upon a Time in Hollywood.)These looks were worn with the likes of gladiator sandals, fluffy mules, and flat leopard bootees, and plenty of substantial leather saddle purses, their embroidered and tasseled straps not a million miles from those that strung Jimi Hendrix’s Fender Stratocaster across his body. Even the house’s classic Le Pliage bag got in on the act, rendered as a capacious holdall in a cool blown-up snakeskin print. That was pretty meaningful, because the freedom Delafontaine had on her mind wasn’t just stylistic but symbolic. This was the house’s first show in New York, a way to mark Longchamp’s 70th birthday but also, for her, the notion that you don’t need to do things the usual and expected way.
Given the moment of real and significant change we’re in, with everyone busy visualizing the way they’d like the fashion industry to be, it’s an impulse that’s only likely to get stronger as the Spring 2019 collections unfold.
8 September 2018
Bon anniversaireto Longchamp, which was founded 70 years ago. Initially, Jean Cassegrain’s company specialized in leather-clad smoking pipes—a category that wouldn’t find much traction now—before broadening its remit and slowly growing into the concern it is today.This morning, Sophie Delafontaine (granddaughter of Jean) showed an anniversary collection she said was inspired by “the spirit of playing around, and of an Amazon woman—we tried to make very feminine pieces with lots of character.” In the Ready-to-Wear there was a heavy emphasis on outerwear layered over long silk or broderie anglaise dresses and three heights of boots that came sometimes fringed, sometimes braided, and sometimes unadorned.There was a long, shaggy shearling gilet, available in seven colors, designed to act as a midwinter bridge between the statement outerwear pieces and the softer layers beneath. Those statements included a patched coat of rabbit in differently dyed shades and some strong reversible shearlings. Delafontaine characterized one suite of bucket bags as a “cozy moment”: They came in richly dyed rabbit. They did indeed look cozy, but the way the wind is blowing and consumer tastes are evolving, real fur soon seems set to go the way of the leather-clad smoking pipe. For now, said Delafontaine, her customer wants fur. Yet she added the meaningful caveat that Longchamp uses only fur “coming from animals we eat. I have no mink, no fox. Just like the leather, it is only coming from animals that are already being slaughtered.” That won’t satisfy a vegan, but it does at least avoid waste.Longchamp’s biggest moment was when it went against the status quo to use nylon to make Le Pliage back in the ’70s. When you look back far enough, all the biggest “heritage” companies were, at some point, innovators: It’s the ones that let that heritage stiffen their sinews against continued innovation that fade away. Longchamp will doubtless make it to 140 if it stays limber and open to change.
5 March 2018
Sophie Delafontaine said she imagined Spring’s woman as a beautiful, business-minded Saint-Germaingaleriste. This was a fabulous fantasy vocation to start from. As well as scooping up the moolah from the never-ending flow of tourists, it demands constant comely drifting up and down the Rue de Seine inspecting rivals’ windows—all via reviving interludes in La Palette, one of the most beautiful and convivial bars in Paris. There are severalgaleristesenjoying precisely such an interlude as I write this.For this dedicated habitué of the neighborhood, on and off since 1974, Delafontaine’s outfits did not ring outrageously inauthentic. Her safari jackets—such a historical Rive Gauche staple—were cut with slouchy élan and very appealing whether in denim, suede (especially the olive), or knit. The new sunglasses line was a little flashy, more First than Sixth, but no great vibe killer. The tulle-framed polka-dot dresses were definitely from a different arrondissement—or maybe a Carrie Bradshaw–edited Paris fantasy—but not aggressively de trop. The graphic shapes were a Delafontaine-imagined adaptation of the often dubious “tribal” artwork you can buy, at greatly inflated expense, up and down this wonderful street. It would be hard to argue against purchasing Delafontaine’s interpretation—why dress a wall when you can dress yourself?
2 October 2017
Although Longchamp’s mega-selling, brand-defining tote Le Pliage is a free-and-easy nugget of casual luxury, this is a house whose codes are infinitely more bourgeois than bohemian. Today, though, Sophie Delafontaine showcased a collection that contained glimpses of a more aesthetically permissive brand cipher. Yes, there were the usual precision-cut leathers, fitted fluted miniskirts in patterned leather, and pared-down good-girl bikers—all present and carefully correct. Yet there was a hint of wildness to the accentuated width of some shaggy shearling lapels. A fine long printed velvet bell–armed dress was—especially in the context of Longchamp—positively louche. Was this rebellion?Delafontaine conceded that she’d dreamed up a girl who was “a little pushier” than usual. The color palette was taken from this imagined girl’s life: pink and coral blush from her makeup bag, red lacquer from her nails, cognac and khaki from her interior designer, and iris and mimosa from her perfume. And, yes, this was a more liberally flavoredParisienne, agreed her author: “She’s normally a Right Bank girl, but this season I think she has crossed the Seine.” Rive Gauche Longchamp—even if she’s only slumming it for one season before running back to the right—was a fun place to be.
6 March 2017
No longer can you shake your fist atLongchampin protest at the obstructed sidewalk on Rue Saint-Honoré. After a project that has been underway for several seasons, an upgraded store has opened at number 404 with a men’s and luggage store alongside. Sophie Delafontaine was particularly excited that the new store has fitting rooms. The old one didn’t, even though the brand has been producing ready-to-wear for 10 years. “Can you imagine how happy I am?” she said as we looked through the Spring collection.Racing car stripes with a vaguely club-tie feel ran across an array of different bags and shoes. The striped motif and palette of white, blue, and raspberry were extended to the clothes, which were sometimes also dappled with florals. A bomber of nylon mesh with striped cuffs was softened with soft pink florals. A moto-shouldered pink lambskin coat bonded to jersey featured the stripes cutting across the waist. A shorter jacket in a navy featured vertical panels of burgundy and white. There were subset suites of pieces in Wedgwood blue and cherry blossom pink that were defined with black piping. Unpretentious, sportily luxe, and bursting with color, this collection provided plenty of ammunition to take into those fitting rooms.
5 October 2016
Sophie Delafontaine said she’d mustered this collection for “a woman who is in the city but has heard the appeal of nature and the forest.” She also clearly appreciates a quick change—because the star garments here were a series of long-length bombers that worked as well over pants as they did masquerading as a minidress. Crucially, they had the great advantage of being reversible.So one example, patterned in a can’t-miss, blue-black-and-gray leopard print, could be quickly switched into a more luxurious yet discreet black rabbit exterior. Patterned fur options included a rich dark camouflage and a classic leopard, reversible to olive cotton and black, respectively. Best of all was a fuzzily analogue, white laminated hand-knit example in a not-quite Aran pattern that could be shrugged off, pulled inside out, and transformed into a much tougher, slightly puckered black lambskin.Knits, skirts, and one long jacket in that same bomber shape were paneled with cross-body, downward-pointing chevrons of mixed materials (suede, rabbit, shearling) and were combinable every which way. This collection’s unpretentious versatility extended to the seasonal bag range, which included many reversible versions of the Roseau. The watercolor-effect zigzag print that came in three colorways and angled up and down calfskin separates was most certainly punchy. Worn as a total look, with matching elasticated shoe-boot and matching bag, it would be perhaps too much for all but the most extrovert completists.
7 March 2016
“And here are the handbags, in the back, if you’d like to see them, too?” Ah, yes, the handbags!Longchampsells a great many of those. Since 1993, more than 32 million examples of one model alone—Le Pliage, its signature nylon or all-leather tote—have dangled from tasteful wrists around the world. Which madeSophie Delafontaine’s question a telling one, for by placing this ready-to-wear collection at the front of her presentation and tucking that core product away at the back, Longchamp’s artistic director was making a statement: We’re not just all about about the bags,capisce?Which is kind of true. With great restraint, Delafontaine resisted any urge to garland her RTW-clad lookbook models with too many of her handbags. But when she did—and once you had seen both front of presentation and back—it became apparent how closely the design notes of the two categories aligned. So a sweet, simple, graphic, and slightly oversize T-shirt of soft pink cut by thick black lines at the waist and sleeves matched exactly the colorways of a leather reversible tote next door. That pink brushstroke print featured on the clothes (most successfully on a summer-night white zip-up coat) as well as the bags, as did the stripes in monochrome and two shades of green. Ditto the interestingly shimmery metallic finish that was rippled with orange and yellow. The standout pieces were the most straightforward; the contra-color popper-pocket shorts and skirts were supercute, as were the raw cut, fabric-lined leather bombers. Depending on what you wear under it, the transparent hooded mini trench could look pretty good, too. And that solar flare–effect leather in a little ripcord hoodie would make fine music festival outerwear. This collection is a rather literal exercise in brand extension, true—but it contains some attractive and wearable pieces that could serve as usefully in a summer wardrobe as a Le Pliage does in your hand.
6 October 2015
In 2006 Sophie Delafontaine, creative director at Longchamp, rustled up a few coats to put onto mannequins in-store. The idea was that her family company's handbags looked rather fetching hanging off the crook of their plastic arms. Then, a few seasons later, she started delving into ready-to-wear proper. Now Delafontaine's Longchamp collection sells in an international network of 1,500-ish doors. It is a thing.Only Longchamp employees get to see this collection worn live on the runway. But on the rail, and on video at the brand's press presentation, it's a proposition that looks worth picking up on. This season Delafontaine uncomplicatedly took inspiration from the graphic shapes and unusual color combinations of the Memphis Group. So high silk or polyester shirts and dresses were gridded with the same patterns displayed on luxury leather versions of Longchamp's golden-ticket, originally nylon bag, Le Pliage. Fine interplays of color—pistachio vs. burgundy worked especially well—zinged on a complementary skirt, shirt, and bag. There was a lot of shearling, chunky but supple on collarless overcoats—that kick in at around the 1,000 euro mark—or shaved superthin, most notably on some velvet lambskin-leather pants/leggings so thin and flexible they could almost be 100 percent synthetic and sourced at Nike (in a good way).Longchamp's success started with tobacco smokers' accessories, but the bags have long been preeminent: unsurprising, then, that this designer and scion of the Longchamp backstory puts bags above ready-to-wear in the hierarchy of desirable things. She said: "I think bags, and shoes, are becoming the key point of the silhouette—it's easier to carry and express what you want with a strong handbag and strong shoes than strong ready-to-wear." Easier? Certainly. And buying clothes that not only match your favorite bag but were expressly designed to do so certainly takes the headache out of putting a look together—even though, strictly, it's cheating. This was a big, slick, aggressively priced, and attractively constructed collection. So has Delafontaine been thinking of presenting Longchamp's first on-schedule show anytime soon? "Not really," she said. But the smile in her eyes told a different story.
9 March 2015