Everyone Who’s Anyone Hates the New Lanvin

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Lanvin presented its fall 2016 show, the first since its unceremonious split with designer Alber Elbaz. And the reviews are in for the new Elbaz-less Lanvin and they are... bad. They're terrible actually.

We knew something had gone horribly wrong early yesterday when Washington Post fashion critic Robin Givhan tweeted a picture of a carpet as a way to spare us from seeing the collection. "You do not want to see [Lanvin]," she wrote. "I saw it so you don't have to."

And distance has not made the heart grow fonder. The headline from Givhan's review from this morning reads, "Tacky, drab, badly-fitted clothes: How did things go so wrong at Lanvin?" Buckle up, folks.

"The clothes did not fit the models in a way that was flattering," she writes. "Everything hung loosely, but nothing had the nonchalant audacity of being oversized. The color palette was faded and dour." She also said the collection should be a warning for labels that are thinking about getting rid of their creative directors without a replacement in mind.

WWD wasn't much kinder in its review. "In the end, it all read as an assortment of clothes, some appealing, some awkward, many serviceable, but not as a coherent, decisive statement such as used to be the point of a runway show," Bridget Foley writes. "That's not the designers' fault. It wasn't their place to deliver a major message. But then, perhaps, their place shouldn't have been on the runway, either, at least not right now."

The Wall Street Journal fashion writer Christina Binkley tweeted, "Ouch. #LANVIN Ill fit and stiff looking lace. Oh, Alber." Then she channeled a GIF of Lindsey Lohan from The Parent Trap to show her dismay.

Me. At Lanvin. And no fair blaming the design team. That came from the top. #Pfw @alberel pic.twitter.com/XQagQOcmry

— Christina Binkley (@BinkleyOnStyle) March 3, 2016

The New York Times's Vanessa Friedman was maybe the kindest of the bunch. "Lanvin without Alber Elbaz: just like everyone else," she said on Twitter. Well, at least it sounds like Lanvin met the average there.

Cathy Horyn, in her typically biting fashion, had a very short message: "Don't look back, Alber."