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Lanvin: I Love You book cover

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‘Flying dress’ Alber’s sketch from the Lanvin Summer 2008 collection

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‘Flying dress’ Lanvin Summer 2008 collection, photographer Alex Koo

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The Flying Dress

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Lanvin Paris windows ‘Car’, photographer Alex Koo, June 2008

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‘The Giant Mask and the Crow’, Lanvin pre-fall 2014 presentation in New York. Photographer Katy Reiss, January 2014

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“Veronica manages a company of 550 employees. She speaks five different languages and mixes with la crème de la crème. She lives alone,” reads the handwritten notes, by Alber. Photographer Katy Reiss, 2012

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“Veronica manages a company of 550 employees. She speaks five different languages and mixes with la crème de la crème. She lives alone,” reads the handwritten notes, by Alber. Photographer Katy Reiss, 2012

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One of the Lanvin windows

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Alber’s sketch for a window concept

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Lanvin Paris windows ‘Violence’. Pphotographer Katy Reiss, May 2011

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Lanvin Letters, set up for the pre-fall 2014 presentation in New York. Photographer Mark Leibowitz, January 2014

There was no better way to rejoice and celebrate the launch of Alber Elbaz’s new book LANVIN: I LOVE YOU, than with a fashionable big feast… without calories – naturally, after all it is fashion, darhling! And that’s exactly what happened.

Confused? Don’t be. LANVIN: I LOVE YOU is a newly launched coffee table tome by Lanvin’s aristic director Alber Elbaz. The 260-page book features a collection of images revealing the label’s whimsical and sometimes daredevil window displays, which the designer has become renowned for.

Inside the book Alber Elbaz shares, though his handwritten notes, the stories of the characters and individuals who appeared in the Lanvin world. The book showcases the fashion and spirit of Lanvin with nearly 200 compositions, ranging from those shown at the Lanvin boutiques, to one-offs at the Crillon as well as unpublished renderings of concepts hand drawn by Elbaz.

“If I was a writer I would start with the name of the book, and then write the story. When I do windows, I don’t start with a red dress or a white coat, I begin with a dream, with a story and a sketch… The shop windows are a portrait of a collection… zooming into the Lanvin world, into our world. Windows are the most direct way to communicate with people,” explains the designer who has been at the helm of Lanvin since 2001.

Behind the scenes of LANVIN: I LOVE YOU:

“We have been through hundreds of images and stills taken by professionals with their industrial cameras, friends and their iPads, and co-workers with their mobiles and polaroids. We didn’t arrange the images chronologically by season or subject, but just with instinct and emotion,” he adds about the process of making his ‘fashion story’. It was only when we spread out all our favourite photos, that I didn’t see windows anymore, I only saw women, individuals. People that I love, people that I know and people that I want to know. Each had a story, a secret. We gave them names, personalities. They began to talk back to us… This book is the tale of those women. A collection of stories. A collection of people I love.”

The book, which was showcased during a star-studded unveiling and signing, is Alber Elbaz’s second for Lanvin. His first, published in 2012, celebrated his 10-year anniversary with the brand. This tome commemorates 125 years of the Parisian fashion house.

Anna Della Russo was one of the many celebs at the book launch and signing:

LANVIN: I LOVE YOU by Alber Elbaz (US$75) is available in all Lanvin boutiques

Behind-the-scenes of the autumn/winter 2014 catwalk show: