‘I think they wanted a good, solid designer who would bring stability,’ says Peter Copping when asked why he believes he was selected as the creative director of Lanvin – Paris’ oldest, continuously operating haute couture house – in 2024.
It is a modest understatement: the British fashion designer, who was born in Oxfordshire and went on to study at London’s Central Saint Martins and Royal College of Art, has one of the industry’s most distinguished CVs. His career began at Christian Lacroix, where he interned in the 1990s; roles at Iceberg and Sonia Rykiel followed; and in 1997, he began a 12-year tenure at Louis Vuitton under Marc Jacobs (Copping ended up as head of womenswear). In 2009, he stepped into the spotlight as creative director of Nina Ricci (he is often credited with revitalising the house), before being personally selected by Oscar de la Renta as his successor in 2014. More recently, he served as head of couture at Balenciaga under Demna, after the Georgian designer relaunched the line in 2021.
Dress, £3,900, by Lanvin
Copping commands so much respect within the industry that his appointment was marked not with the usual lively internet debate, but a rare positive consensus. The ovation after his first show – held in January 2025 at Paris’ Pavillon Gabriel as a precursor to the wave of creative director debuts that would follow in September that year – was equally emphatic. There, he posited a contemporary vision of founder Jeanne Lanvin’s 1920s heyday, all louche silhouettes and decadent details, with the addition of menswear on the runway (the latter came with a similar spirit, seeing swathes of sequins spread across the shoulder of a shirt or patches of intarsia shearling adorning a sweater).
But there is truth to the fact that, after two years at the house, Copping is a steadying force – and not simply in his demeanour (he is softly spoken and thoughtful, far from the mercurial figure often associated with designers in his position). ‘I know how to run an atelier,’ he says from his office in the new Lanvin HQ in Hôtel Botterel de Quintin, a listed 18th-century building in Paris’ 10th arrondissement. ‘My primary focus is always the clothes, working with the design team, finding the fabrics. That always has to be the anchor of a collection.’
A safe pair of hands was much needed for Lanvin, which had been in a state of decline since the exit of Alber Elbaz in 2015, following a 14-year tenure. The late Israeli designer brought an after-dark insouciance to the house, with jewel-tone cocktail gowns cut with ruffles, bows and drapes, and adorned with gobstopper costume jewellery; by 2019, four years after his exit, annual sales had slumped from €143m to €41m, and a stream of creative directors followed, including Bouchra Jarrar, Olivier Lapidus, Bruno Sialelli and Chemena Kamali. When Copping started, Lanvin had been without a creative director for 14 months.
Glove, price on request, by Lanvin
His approach was to begin in the house’s archive, which comprises both clothing and ephemera, including fabric and embroidery swatches, a particular obsession of Copping’s. Paris’ museums and curators also ‘opened their doors to him’, including Alexandre Samson at the Palais Galliera. ‘Jeanne Lanvin’s work is so incredibly detailed,’ he says, noting that her garments would often appear as one thing from afar, and another close up. ‘You might see a sequin dress, but when you actually look at it, it’s layers of different geometric sequins’ (the technique inspired Copping to create constellations of embellishment in his first collection). The antique fabrics that Jeanne Lanvin had sourced on trips to Egypt and Venice, as well as those developed by the designer herself, proved equally inspiring: in a pioneering move, she would go on to create her own dyeing workshop outside Paris, which would lead to the advent of the house’s signature blue.
‘She was really forward thinking,’ Copping says of the proto-multi-hyphenate, who was an early adopter of menswear (Lanvin-Tailor-Shirtmaker was introduced in 1926), childrenswear (she started making miniature versions of her clothing for her daughter Marguerite in 1908), fragrance (Lanvin Perfumes was established in 1924), and interiors (she co-founded Lanvin Décoration with Armand-Albert Rateau in 1921). ‘Jeanne came from humble beginnings, and I have a huge admiration for her for starting so young. She began as a milliner and then used her daughter as a muse to make clothes that people started to see, and then wanted. She understood women’s lives were changing.’
Copping can relate to the desire to create across mediums. He started his own homeware line La Carlière, with his French husband Rambert Rigaud, in 2020, named after the pair’s 15th-century manor house in Normandy and comprising cushions made from rare or antique fabrics constructed using the techniques typically used to create haute couture clothing. The home, which Copping dedicated his time to restoring after his exit from Oscar de la Renta in 2016, would become a place of solace away from fashion (he took a break of around five years before starting at Balenciaga).
Dress, £4,640, by Lanvin
‘After Oscar de la Renta, I wanted to take a little time off. But sometimes taking a break can go on a little longer than planned,’ he says. ‘So it was really exciting to go on to work with Demna [at Balenciaga]. It was amazing to be at that house at that time. My job was to get his vision made: bringing in Lésage for the embroidery, or collaborating with [Savile Row tailor] Huntsman, or introducing Philip Treacy to work on the hats. These weren’t the sort of people that Demna had worked with before that.’
Now, at Lanvin, he is orchestrating his own vision once again, with his A/W 2026 womenswear collection marking his strongest yet. Inspired by the 100th anniversary of menswear at the house, Copping explored fabrics more traditionally associated with men’s clothing, like heritage flannels and Prince of Wales checks, as well as the tailoring silhouette. Several of the looks came with dramatic sou’wester-style hats in fabrics that matched the garments, seeing Copping reference a photograph of model Guinevere van Seenus on the October 1999 cover of i-D wearing a similar style he’d designed while at Louis Vuitton. Folded darts on the back of jackets gave a more hourglass line, while a sense of ‘feminine volume’ came in the asymmetric cut of skirts and dresses. Evening wear was inspired by the 1920s, though less ‘up and down’ for a more flattering silhouette, but embellishment remained central – from trailing streamers of shimmering paillettes to intricate beading and tassels. ‘The 1920s was such a strong period for design,’ says Copping. ‘People were looking for something [new] after the First World War. You were seeing decoration reappear everywhere.’
‘There’s definitely a clientele looking for something more niche, pieces that are considered and special, that you won’t go to a party and find three other people wearing’
Peter Copping
While the numbers – for various reasons, including company-wide restructuring and the closure of bricks-and-mortar stores – are yet to show enormous change, Copping is confident that Lanvin is moving forward (the shows are certainly the strongest, and most cohesive, since Elbaz, and the Lanvin Group reports ‘improving momentum’ in sales). The red carpet is bearing that out (Cate Blanchett, Kate Hudson and Katie Holmes have all recently worn Lanvin's designs), while Copping believes a steadily growing group of clients is turning to him for the kind of craft-rich garments that only a handful of people will own. ‘There’s definitely a clientele looking for something more niche, pieces that are considered and special, that you won’t go to a party and find three other people wearing,’ he notes.
Jacket, skirt, boots, price on request, by Lanvin
‘Fashion is something that you don’t want to stand still. It should constantly evolve’
Peter Copping
‘Fashion is something that you don’t want to stand still,’ says Copping. ‘It should constantly evolve.’ And for now, at Lanvin, that means taking it back to the clothes themselves. ‘There’s so much scope with Lanvin, it could become a lifestyle brand, but we are a small house and have to pick our timings. I want everything to be special and considered. It’s about the process.’
A version of this article appears in the December 2026 issue of Wallpaper*, available from 8 October in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today