The New Wave of Womenswear: Louise Trotter
The designer and creative director of Carven - after debuting during Paris Fashion Week with the first spring summer 2024 collection - talks about her vision which is contributing to the construction of a new history of the French brand.
In 1945 the founder Marie-Louise Carven founded the Maison Carven with the aim of dressing a small woman, a couturier who at the time faced two other rare women in the sector, Elsa Schiaparelli and Coco Chanel. «In many respects she was the pioneer of ready-to-wear, marketing and fashion shows used as a communication tool and lived as experiences. He infused his brand with his personality and his spirit of youthful, spontaneous joy. Her love for nature and her optimistic spirit, more than any specific code" says Louise Trotter, the first female creative director of the brand after the founder who presented her first spring summer 2024 collection during the last Paris fashion week, putting the French Maison, dormant since Serge Ruffieux's last creative direction in 2018, is in motion . «I intend to slowly evolve and rebuild this fashion house to make it much loved by the public. With the founder I share common values such as the desire to create beautiful and useful clothes for every day. Rewarding clothes, which give confidence to the wearer, and made with a pragmatic approach, without too much drama and noise."
The British designer , born in Sunderland in 1969, after studying fashion design at Newcastle University, worked at Whistles and then moved to the USA to work at Calvin Klein , Gap and Tommy Hilfiger . Returning to London she worked for a period at Jigsaw , subsequently taking the reins of Joseph 's style for 9 years, and her last experience was 4 years at Lacoste where she «explored the innovative methods of upcycling» .
Her stylistic language is smart, sober, in the spirit of "less is more" with some additions of sportswear. Her intent is to : «focus on the wardrobe and the female figures who wear it, creating an idea of community that is a place where women can come into contact, feel seen, be part of a shared story beyond of fashion, in which awareness and optimism are celebrated" she responds in an ambitious and determined manner in the undertaking to build a new era of Carven. And among her inspirations, the artist Alison Watt is also cited, with whom she collaborated to create the invitation for her first fashion show - the painting Warrender (2016), a white page folded in four - almost as if to represent her intention to bring back the counters to zero and write a new chapter of the Maison, this time female.
