It’s All Change at Carven as Louise Trotter Makes Her Debut
PARIS — It’s Carven, but not as you know it.
The 78-year-old label returns to the runway on Saturday after a multiyear absence with a totally new identity.
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“We intend to change everything — the stores, the logo, everything,” Carven creative director Louise Trotter told WWD in a preview.
Raring as she is to get going on this new chapter, “the point of view is that I want to build this quite carefully and slowly,” continued the British designer, who came on board in February.
“It is rare that you have an opportunity as a creative to have a blank page,” she said. The French fashion house, owned by Icicle’s parent company ICCF Group since 2018, had been without a marquee designer for several years.
Slow and steady is also how the brand plans to approach the market. “Work in progress. We look forward to seeing you in early 2024,” states the brand’s website.
Trotter’s spring 2024 collection will only be available in Carven boutiques, including its historic Paris flagship, with the aim of launching wholesale early next year, according to the company.
First things first: the clothes. Trotter approached the collection “as first intentions,” in what she described as “a very pragmatic approach of considering the wardrobe of the woman that I want to dress.”
“The spirit of Carven was defined by Madame Carven herself,” she continued, highlighting “optimism, joy, spontaneity” as ongoing tenets for the brand. “[She] wanted to create clothes for women to enjoy and feel confidence.”
As such, Carven is “more about a spirit than a particular silhouette or icon,” continued the designer, though she did allow that “there was a strong attention to the waist and hips, which you will see in this collection” percolating from its heritage.
That woman is “a woman who’s in movement, who’s on the go, who lives an active life — a real person” to whom she plans on offering enjoyable clothes that inspire confidence.
Pragmatism is another notion that kept returning in conversation, pivotal to what Trotter is establishing.
She wants to build Carven into “a house that becomes a home for many women,” with a strong “focus on the clothes, focus on the woman who wears those clothes.”
Around 40 silhouettes will make up this first chapter, making up “a complete wardrobe so that women can wear everything from a T-shirt to an evening dress.”
Subtle nods to house codes can also be expected, although there will be little reminiscing. Trotter isn’t one for it, and nor was Madame Carven. “[She] was a woman of her time. She was not nostalgic. She was a woman looking forward.”
Jewelry will be a strong element of this new chapter, an element that goes “directly back to our past because Carven has a rich history in incredible jewels, so there is a sense of history,” the designer said.
Footwear and accessories will complete the Carven look by Trotter. “What I’m trying to work [toward] is a silhouette, a woman, a feeling,” she said. “I’m creating my world.”
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