Lanvin appoints Barbara Werschine as CEO, boosts elegance and lifestyle push

Lanvin just signaled that it is done pretending it can win like a trend brand. The house has named Barbara Werschine chief executive officer and paired her arrival with a clearer push toward elegance, formalwear, menswear, and the kind of lifestyle categories that make a brand feel inhabited, not just shopped.

That is the real story here. Werschine is not a hype-cycle pick. Her résumé runs through Hermès, Celine, Louis Vuitton, and Zadig & Voltaire, with a most recent stop as chief executive of Eric Bompard. Lanvin says she brings more than 20 years in luxury, and that pedigree matters because this job is not about chasing the loudest drop. It is about restoring house codes, the sort of codes that make a label feel like a reference point in taste rather than a passing product story.

The timing is telling. The appointment was announced on May 29, 2026, after Lanvin Group reported FY2025 revenue of €240 million, down 18 percent year over year. Direct-to-consumer still made up 68 percent of revenue, but the business was dragged by macroeconomic headwinds, softer demand in EMEA and Greater China, and the kind of store rationalization and repositioning that usually means a brand is deciding what it wants to be next.

Lanvin is betting that the answer lives in its own archive. Jeanne Lanvin founded the house in 1889, and the company still calls it the oldest continually operating couture house in France. That history is not decorative. It is the argument for why Lanvin should lean into bourgeois polish, not trend volatility: the sharp shoulder, the clean evening line, the room-temperature confidence of a house that understands clothing as a full world, not a logo exercise.

That is also why Peter Copping matters so much in the background. Named artistic director in June 2024 and effective that September, he leads womenswear and menswear, and Lanvin has already framed his Autumn/Winter 2026 Paris collection as a milestone in the relaunch. Werschine now takes over the commercial and strategic side of the reset, while Andy Lew, who had served as CEO since July 2025, stays on as executive chairman of Lanvin Group, which also includes Wolford, Sergio Rossi, and St. John Knits.

The question for Lanvin is simple and very old-money in its own way: can it become a house people trust for taste again, not just for product? If Werschine can turn Lanvin back into a lifestyle authority, the brand will finally look less like a turnaround case and more like a code.