Alber Elbaz Was Sad That Models Couldn’t Walk In His Heels

by Justin Fenner | 12:29 pm, November 1st, 2010

We have always imagined that Lanvin‘s Alber Elbaz was one of the kindest people in fashion, and it turns out we were right. WWD reports that the sky-high titanium heels he planned to use for his spring summer 2011 show made it almost impossible for his models to walk, and when he noticed this, he got a little upset.

“Only 10 or 12 [of the models] said they could walk in the heels,” he said. “But the ones that couldn’t were, like, 37 of them. I got very emotional — not that I got mad at them — but I got very emotional that they didn’t complain. You know what? Damn it with image. You can be stubborn and go after an image, but I’m not an image-maker; I’m a dressmaker. If you don’t feel good in something, you don’t look good with it.”

In the interest of making the models look good, he put them in very commercial flat sandals that anyone could manage. Maybe it’s that kind of dedication to pure form and function — and not to trends or to the whims of editors — that’s made it possible for Elbaz to have so much success. But on the eve of bringing his vision of fashion to the masses with his Lanvin collaboration for H&M, Elbaz says he’s not in it for the money.

“I’m in an industry of dreams and excitement and love and beauty. I’m not feeling that I’m a part of this megaindustry of billion dollars. At Lanvin, we’re an independent company — we are very far from this.”

Passion is a key ingredient in the development of a really good designer, and it’s not rare to hear a designer attach poetic sentiment to the clothes he or she makes, or wax philosophical about the impact design has on the world. But Elbaz does it in a way that’s utterly genuine and entirely not annoying.

In the WWD profile, he opens up in this way about his history in fashion, traveling from Geoffrey Beene to Guy Laroche to Yves Saint Laurent. It was after a bad experience there (Gucci Group acquired the house and almost didn’t allow Elbaz to show his third collection) that he took a hiatus from fashion. He came to Lanvin in 2001.

His clout increases every time he sends a collection down the runway, and perhaps that’s why he was always so reluctant to do a collaboration with a lower-priced brand. But for Elbaz, turning back on that promise is all a matter of timing — and about sharing the wealth of beauty he sees and creates every day.

“Ninety-five percent of women cannot afford [Lanvin], so let them have a taste. It’s like if I was living in a palace and opened some doors and said, ‘Have tea with me, taste the food.’ It’s not about giving away something that belonged to someone else; it’s about sharing.”

Elbaz will share his talent and vision with the world when a short film including the collection debuts tomorrow, and again later this month when the collection will come to H&M stores everywhere.

[Via WWD]