Georg Lux (Leonard Paris): “Beauty is one of the most comforting expressions of our humanity.”

A stone's throw from the Arc de Triomphe, the Leonard Paris creative studio, orchestrated by Georg Lux, is carefully polishing its latest Fall-Winter collection. Entitled “City Nomad”, the pieces present “a gradation of textures and colours, of moods, right down to hope. We can see spring coming.” When Lux talks about fashion, his eyes twinkle. “I wanted to portray a woman who travels from city to city, crossing deserts and surreal places, in search of beauty,” he explains as he stares at the pieces. “When you look at everything that's going on in the world, I wanted to point out that beauty can arise amidst the very worst that humanity can sometimes cause. Beauty is one of the most comforting expressions of our humanity.”

Wandering through a Leonard Paris collection as you would through a garden: “the art of the flower” has become a signature of the House. “Each season has its own favourite flower, and this time we chose the rose. It's mythical and mysterious. It represents femininity, love and desire.” An enthusiastic Lux presented a garnet-red jacket in woolen cloth, with a large rose spread out in Swarovski crystals, then a coat in double-faced wool. “Here, you can almost no longer see that it's a flower; it's become pointillist, abstract lines.” And the journey carries on, into the skies, on a black top flecked with orange and yellow dots, ‘as if from a plane where you can see the cities receding and the lights fading away.” The buttons in this collection are adorned with semi-precious stones: lapis lazuli, tiger's eye and malachite. 

All the prototypes are made in France, while production takes place in Italy. “We work with several Italian manufacturers who are always on the lookout for something new,” he explains, as he delicately grabs a faux leather dress specially developed this season for the House, like a vinyl, printed with this embossed flower. “I feel that these plain black pieces make the prints even more graphic. It's the light that reveals the flower. Inside the sleeves, an orange fabric with a Leonard print, known only to the customer, the ultimate in chic. On a greige and khaki lined coat, the floral motif takes the form of ‘a printed compact powder, which gives the fabric a painted effect.”

“The House of Leonard was founded in 1958 and has never stopped creating, season after season. You can read the times by exploring its archives.”

Officially appointed Artistic Director of the House in January 2021, Lux discovered an extraordinary heritage. “It was wonderful, going through all these accumulated archives, the prints, the old lookbooks, the pieces that had been preserved. I needed to digest all of this to extract the essence and update it.” His creativity is meticulously articulated and methodical, as if he was constantly channelling his creative impulse. “For each collection, I always start with an archive drawing. This season, I chose a leopard print.” Browsing through the hundreds of campaigns produced by the House, Lux came across a photo of Veruschka in a Vogue magazine from the 1960s. “When I saw this image, I immediately wanted to bring out this print. I love Veruschka, she's always included in my moodboards as she perfectly embodies the Leonard spirit.” A model and actress, Veruschka revolutionised the fashion images of the 60s and 70s with her daring and captivating presence, and remains the muse of contemporary designers, including Lux.

Her inspirations go far beyond fashion. “I also draw a lot of my inspiration from the cinema. I re-watched “Metropolis”, starring Brigitte Helm as Maria and her double Futura. For me, this film symbolises the extreme beauty that comes from atrocity. I'm also thinking of “The Mood for Love”, the atmosphere of a big anonymous city in the night, with its warm, sensual, amber lights, which we find in this new collection.”

“Paris has always been the fashion epicentre that creates trends, makes them desirable and then explodes across the world. I had to live and work in Paris.”

“Ever since I was little, I knew I wanted to be a fashion designer. I wanted to live in Paris and work in Paris." Born in Berlin, Lux grew up in a newly reunited capital that was experiencing an unprecedented cultural and artistic eruption. “There was a crazy energy at that time. Berlin was at the height of the underground, of grunge. But for fashion, Paris was the centre. You had to be in Paris.”

Young Lux quickly discovered fashion by delving into the archives of the great post-war masters. “I always loved Jacques Fath, a contemporary of Christian Dior, Pierre Balmain and Cristóbal Balenciaga,” he says with a smile, revealing echoes of the enthusiasm he must have felt when he first set eyes on these designs. “Fath was an extremely cheerful designer and remains contemporary. He showed youth, freshness, sexiness, glamour, and was way ahead of his time.” Fashion designers and fashion images fueled his taste and references. “I was also fascinated by Irving Penn and Richard Avedon's images of Suzy Parker walking through Paris at night. It always made me dream.”

Lux pursued his passion head-on, attending the Lette-Verein school of applied arts in Berlin before flying to Paris to complete his studies at the École de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, which merged with the Institut Français de la Mode in 2019. When he arrived in Paris, he settled “in a tiny flat on boulevard Saint-Germain, close to the Café de Flore,” in the heart of the legendary Paris Rive Gauche. Historically, this district has nurtured the development of iconic figures such as Simone de Beauvoir, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Georges Braque... Major figures who have contributed to forging the multicultural, creative and thought-fulfilling heritage of this district that spans generations. “I loved watching people on the street, the women's outfits, their lifestyle. It immediately appealed to me, and I felt at home.”

“You can be elegant in many ways. I don't create a woman who follows trends, but who has her own style, her own personality.”

The question remains through each era, for every designer: What is elegance today, at the moment we create? “Today, trends change extremely rapidly and can come from anything and everything. The advantage of being a luxury House is precisely not to follow trends, but to create them, while maintaining one's own style.” This approach necessarily involves paying great attention to “the innovation of craftsmanship and techniques, to producing sometimes in smaller quantities with the highest quality, and ensuring that not everything comes from the other side of the world.”

For Georg Lux, luxury is the art of being able to take one's time, to enjoy, in the utmost comfort, each moment. “It’s this slow-paced movement of extreme luxury that we want to embrace, intimately, leisurely.”

Reuben Attia.