Lanvin, Oldest French Fashion House, Names a New Designer

A major vacancy in the fashion world has been filled. On Thursday, Lanvin, the oldest continually operating French couture house, named Peter Copping its new artistic director, an appointment that indicates a potential return to pure designers after a period in which the buzz was focused on content creators.

“Peter Copping’s arrival at Lanvin is an important milestone in the renaissance of one of the great French maisons,” Siddhartha Shukla, the deputy chief executive of Lanvin, said in a news release, adding he was confident that “we will identify a new frontier in fashion and deliver beauty and results in equal measure.”

Mr. Copping, 57 and British, is known for his feminine sophistication as well as his technical prowess, and is a fashion insider’s fashion designer. He has spent the last five years working behind the scenes at Balenciaga, first as head of couture, where he was instrumental in orchestrating the much celebrated return of couture to that house, and then as head of special projects and the V.I.P. Atelier. (The announcement of his appointment at Lanvin came the day after Balenciaga’s latest couture show, attended by Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts, among others.) Previously, he had been the handpicked heir to Oscar de la Renta before Mr. de la Renta’s death roiled his succession plans, and the head designer at Nina Ricci.

The new job signals a return to the spotlight for Mr. Copping and Lanvin, which had been without a designer since the departure of Bruno Sialelli more than a year ago, and had been struggling to regain the relevance and success it had enjoyed under its longtime designer Alber Elbaz.

It was Mr. Elbaz who had waked up what he called an industry “sleeping beauty” known more for its Arpège perfume than its fashion, and turned it into a Cinderella story. He left in 2015 after a falling-out with the owner at the time, Shaw-Lan Wang, and died of Covid-19 in 2021.