Lanvin makes management changes

Still in hot water, Lanvin is reshuffling its management. The Chinese billionaire Shaw-Lan Wang, who controls 75% of the Parisian fashion house's capital (Swiss businessman Ralph Bartel holding the remaining 25%), called Nicolas Druz to her side as adviser at the end of August, with the mission "to assist in the decision-making process".

The information, unveiled by WWD, was confirmed to FashionNetwork.com by the label. Meanwhile, Michèle Huiban is about to leave the board of directors, as well as her position as Lanvin's chief executive officer to return to the position of deputy managing director, which she held between 2011 and 2013.

Huiban, present at Lanvin since 2008, took the position of CEO in 2013, replacing Thierry Andretta, who had piloted the brand since 2009.

The change in management comes at a particularly delicate time for Lanvin, which has not recovered from the turmoil caused by the departure of its former artistic director Alber Elbaz at the end of 2015.

Bouchra Jarrar, who succeeded the Israeli-American creator, was let go in July, just 15 months after her arrival, and replaced by Olivier Lapidus, son of Ted Lapidus. The fashion designer is relatively unknown to the general public. The new artistic director will unveil his first Lanvin collection on September 27 in Paris.

Since Alber Elbaz's departure, Lanvin has seen sales fall by 23% in 2016, to 162 million euros, and posted a net loss of 18.3 million, after a profit of 6.3 million in 2015.

The arrival of Nicolas Druz as adviser is surprising. Close to Shaw-Lan Wang, he worked in particular for the Wang group in Paris, who in the 1990s ran the Chinese-language newspaper Europe Journal. The former Lanvin executive was appointed just after the brand was purchased in 2001 by the Taiwanese billionaire, but remained in the position for just a few months ...

Lanvin makes management changes

See also