In the Forbes list as one of the richest women in Asia, if not the world, Madam Shaw Lan Wang’s persona precedes the person. P. Ramakrishnan was the only journalist in Hong Kong granted a one-on-one interview with the reclusive Madam Wang, owner of the iconic French couturier, Lanvin. She was only too happy to shed the Euro-media illusions in this exclusive interview as she clears up urban myth with a reality check.
Minutes before the burgundy velvet curtains part, a benign hush filters conversation at the grand opening of one of Lanvin’s biggest flagship stores. The fall/winter line is about to strut out in style and stilettos, as dozens of models swish down the catwalk showcasing 40 designs of Alber Elbaz, the Casablanca born Israeli, known the world over as the resident designer of Lanvin.
All in the know knew that Elbaz was still in Paris, but high praise and great press reports of his latest collection landed in Hong Kong, even if he didn’t. Over the last two years, sales of Lanvin’s ready-to-wear touched figures of about US$100 million, and the number of retailers selling Lanvin more than tripled, from 20 to 70 around the globe.
Elbaz received patronage from two curmudgeonly panels; European press and the French buyers. And let’s not forget that this is the brand that style icon Kate Moss sports, without an air-kissed sponsorship to do so.
So of course the air was ripe with expectation but oddly enough, it wasn’t just for the clothes that had French editors raving. It was for a true blue media baroness and recluse, who was attending the event… or so the congregation of fashion followers were told.
“Madam Wang will open the ceremony. And Yes she is flying in from Paris. No, we don’t know if the flight was on time. And she won’t be meeting the press just yet. No, no one’s seen her yet. No interviews! Yes, Linda says she saw her in Shanghai last year. No, she isn’t sure if it’s the same person...”
The overheard dialogues were boggling but such is the legend of Madam Wang that even the most jaded purveyor of society and fashion would raise a sculpted eyebrow.
Will the fine feathered and coiffed get to meet and shake her manicured hand? The hand the rocked the industry when she took over the oldest French couture house (founded in 1889 by Jeanne Lanvin) in an unexpected, unprecedented corporate change of guard in 2001.
Well past the appointed hour, as the curtains part, a collective gasp detonates. A host of penguin suits appear and in the midst of men, a slight, sixty-something Chinese lady, dressed in an impeccable blue cheongsam, studded with beads, collared with diamonds takes centre stage. She welcomes and smiles at the crowd, and moves aside as a parade of models pony-trot down the catwalk.
The mall is peppered with security as the crème de la crème of society solemnly watch the makeshift stage that spilled out of the boutique, encroaching every visible inch of space at IFC, the newly anointed “it” place in Hong Kong that houses the toniest brands on the planet.
The usual cocktail of the famed and fortuned mill the room, with their fingers wrapped in champagne flutes as they try to get up close and personal with Madam Wang as the show closes to warm applause.
In an exclusive tête-à-tête with the head of the billion-dollar company, we meet in person, late that same Friday night, at her suite, surrounded and guarded with company heads and PR reps, fawning around one of the richest women in Asia. By the time the photographer’s set up lighting, it’s close to 1:00am.
In a jovial mood after an evening that has obviously gone well, when asked if she’s wearing Lanvin, she laughs and says, “No! I am Chinese. I only wear Chinese outfit. But it’s in the style of Lanvin!”
“See this…”, she says pointing to the hem of her outfit, as soft tufts of fabric, seemingly unfinished, glisten as the studded beads catch the night light. “My seamstress says, ‘No madam, it’s not finished. I can’t work like this!’ But that’s the style! It looks like its not done, but it is. For the past 42 years, always the same style – if you travel around Europe you’ll see many Japanese shoppers and they change fashion according to the country. Not me. My style is Chinese, always.”
When you first acquired Lanvin, it wasn’t doing well…
“Who says?” she interjects, smarting at the comment.
Media reports were rampant in the early years of the decade of spiraling costs and recoiling profits.
“No. Lanvin belonged to the richest woman in the world,” she says as she arches her back on the sofa. “A big, rich family. The company has never suffered as it is reported.”
For the record, according to reports, in 1990, the cosmetic giant L'Oreal acquired the house of Lanvin, which invited the likes of Claude Montana, Giorgio Armani, Christina Ortiz and ex-Versace designer Ocimar Versolato to work with or for the brand (while sustaining their own labels).
Though it did well, it was never mentioned in the same breath as other French icons that dominate the luxury brand arena. The press said the company never had a unifying vision of its products. In August 2001, an investor group led by Shaw Lan Wang (aka Madam Wang), known then only as “the Taiwanese media baroness”, took over the house of Lanvin. She handpicked Albaz as the creative director and since his fall line unfurled on the catwalk exactly four years ago, the company has morphed from a simmering trend to a formidable force.
“We were there at the right time, right place,” she asserts, without going into specifics. Then, recounting the history of the procuring the Parisian brand, she leans back a bit on her lush sofa and says, “I’ve been asked that question [about how Lanvin was purchased] by everyone. You know in Chinese, the proverb says, when you are doing good to people, good things will return to you. Somebody else wanted to buy Lanvin. They negotiated for quite a long time. And the French people, they are a special character. When they don’t want, they don’t want. You are rich or not, they don’t care. So these friends of mine, cannot negotiate with L’Oreal.”
“But I have a lot of reputation with people and they all know me in France. I speak good French, better than English you see? So people ask, whether I can negotiate for them, so I said ok. So this continues, and continues. So the moment we have to sign, this friend says… I don’t want it anymore!”
Taking a pause, Madam Wang unclasps her palms and throws them in the air and continues, “It wasn’t my idea originally to buy Lanvin, but at that moment, what can you do? Cry? Chinese don’t cry. Loss of face. I would lose face. He would lose face. Crying is no use. No, I cannot do that. So I continue. Then I continued as if nothing happened, that’s the history.”
Not even founder Jeanne Lanvin, who was heavily influenced by orientalism in 1914 and introduced Eastern-style satins and velvets in Chemise dresses to Paris, could have predicted that an Asian baroness would herald the company in the following millennium.
When asked to explain why the French were willing to sit across the table with her, and not with the other people, she explains, “You know French people have a lot of confidence. I have a lot of friends in France. Politically, they may be right side or left side, I don’t care. If they are good French, then they are all my friends! If I don’t like this guy, even if he’s the president, then bye-bye!”
“So they know my character. They know how I am. See I was negotiating for another person but at that moment, I had to take it in my shoulder.”
It hasn’t been a smooth transition and as Le Monde reports, the house let go 65 employees and exited the perfume and watch businesses in an effort to stem heavy losses, which had mounted to 22 million euros on sales of 79.3 million euros in 2003. Did the thought of bringing down the shutters cross her mind, during the ebbs of the business cycle?
“No. there was never a time, when I thought I would leave the company,” she responds. Her two manicured fingers make a circle in the air and she simply says, “Face.”
“Because of me, they give me Lanvin, I cannot destroy Lanvin. It was like a mission, like a responsibility to keep Lanvin alive. Later, I have another motivation. This is the first time I show it to anyone… even to you,” she says looking at the general manager in charge of the Hong Kong division seated across her. Thumbing through her purse, she digs out sheaths of paper, wrapped inside are pictures of a baby girl.
“See… is cute huh? Wait, wait, wait, but she looks like a boy there huh?” she says, smiling incessantly as sheaths of photographs emerge from the proud grandmother’s copious purse.
“See, when she was one-and-a-half, she was already on the podium, for another show, for an Italian fashion for charity, for a children’s fashion brand. In French, girl is “fille” and I call her Fi-fi. She was the small mannequin for the catalogue… obviously she was preparing for Lanvin!”
Laughter rings around the room as pictures pass through various hands. “Later, I tell Alber, make clothes for children - hurry up! She’s growing up. I need you to prepare Lanvin for her. But she’s growing up so fast, he said to me, “Not children’s wear, I’ll prepare Lanvin for teenagers.”
Legend has it that a simple five-minute phone conversation was enough to secure him as the head designer for the company - without even meeting Elbaz in person or seeing his work!
“No, that’s not exactly true,” she yet again corrects one of the many misconceptions floating around the media about the company and about her. “I received a phone-call and I thought, how can he reach me? He’s never seen me, I’ve never seen him – how did he get me on the phone?! He wanted to have an appointment with me. I was in St Tropez at that time. I went back to Paris, I met him the second day. Just looked at him for the first time. And I don’t know him. And I had never heard of his name at all. I saw his press book and at that time, I had already seen hundreds of pictures from other designers. But from the few pictures I saw of his, I knew. This was it. The lines were really simple. Special. The material has a special cutting. We were talking for about 10 minutes… he says 6 minutes, I say 10!”
More laughs. Shaking her head with a surreptitious smile, she exclaims, “Then I asked, will you agree to work with me? Done.”
That blind faith in a designer she knew nothing of, clearly paid off. “I never see a design. Every time we are in a fashion show, I keep a straight face because I have never seen it before! His studio is on the same building – we’re on the second floor, his studio is on the sixth. When it’s almost finished, I just go up and say, “Hiiiiii Alber, How are youuuuuu?” (she says extending the vowels in a sing-song voice). I see a bit. I have never disagreed or disliked his work. Admiration. Only admiration.”
Elbaz, the mysterious and talented man she met was in fact, at that time, splashed across the tabloids for his tumultuous time and exit with YSL. Trained by the late and legendary Geoffrey Beene, Elbaz was recruited to head Guy Laroche in 1996. He has often said that working at his former employ was intimidating, and as the company grew and as Tom Ford and Domenico de Sole came in, well, there were too many men with too many needles and threads making the same outfit! The hasty exit was fodder, lapped up by the press.
Elbaz once commented in the print that Lanvin saved him and Madam Wang jumps in his court, “He is too modest. No, that’s not true. He needed a job, he wanted a job that he loves. A house. Where he would feel at home, not just make money but feel loved. He was a great talent and we needed him as much as he needed us.”
Glamourous as it may be, the cloak and hanger industry is a business that needs to see profits at the end of the day. “But that is the nature of business. Even an artist or a painter has to survive right? We both [Elbaz and Wang] look at the figures, the sales. He passes the boutique everyday and takes a look and asks the chief, which is selling good, what you sell well. Also he looks at the records. I don’t know if other brands encourage that but we do. Alber, he has his artistic character, but he also has a good business mind.”
The warmth and affection she has for her head designer is palpable as she repeats a conversation from her office, “Our director of human resources says to me, ‘Madam, you are against the law!’
‘What happened’ I ask?
‘They all are working too much. They pass already 80 hours! If you pass 54 hours a month, you have to go to jail!
French law, French system, French politics! Humph! Two days later, I told Albaz, ‘Prepare earlier for the shows, otherwise they pass 55 hours and I have to go to jail!’
And he says, “Madam. Don’t worry. If you go to jail, I take my design board and I go to jail with you! You can take a rest. And I still continue my work. But French people can’t understand that!”
Needless to say working conditions are very different in the two countries Madam Wang calls home as she shuttles between France and Taiwan, spending months on end in each continent. “In July, August, its vacation time in France - we close! Would that happen in Hong Kong? Two months nobody work? We have a few people in the office but they can’t work because it’s fashion and it is team work. French politics and French system is very difficult!”
She throws her hands in the air, bemused and amused by the practice. Though it may seem like the designer and the owner are completely in sync, there is but one difference, concludes Madam Wang, “Alber, he wants to make women beautiful and happy. I only want one thing; I want the company to be great. That is the only plan I have. Greatness.”
Image courtesy of Hong Kong-based photographer William Furniss.
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