Hands up: Georg Lux (Leonard)

GEORG LUX 

LAGOON SCRIPTURE

Recently acquired by its Japanese partner, Sankyo Seiko (which also owns Daks London), Leonard is reinventing itself with fantasy and rigour in the heart of a private mansion in Paris, in the sixteenth arrondissement. The Maison is currently led by Berlin-born Georg Lux, 37, who has always been in love with flowers and prints that he enjoys bringing to life on a blank page. After joining the house in 2020, he presents his first physical show this season. From the “Cooptic” print to the rosettes treated as an overlay on white boutis, the cruise goes on and on. “I can’t imagine drawing anything but on paper. It’s my brain that guides my hand. I use markers, but I prefer coloured pencils; they allow me to play with the intensity of each hue. And then, I like to hear the noise of the silk – it feels like tropical leaves in the wind…”

Lagoon, this is the name of the collection presented in Paris, at the Palais de Tokyo. Lux, a pastor’s grandson, conjures Princess Margaret taking vacations in Mustique. A vaporous dress required a total of 12 metres of fabric. Everything flies, everything smiles, and the sun shines. With a treasure chest of archives (5,000 drawings, 2,000 dresses since the creation of the house in 1958), Leonard naturally lends itself to exercises in chromatic style, with three designers reproducing explosive cameos: “The Leonard hand consists of knowing how to make a flower with a gradation of colour, the famous poudré. It is the silk jersey on which we print patterns (25 colours, never more). From macramé to raffia embroidery, from English embroidery to flowers of paradise, this story is written with a lovely ink. “I was born in East Berlin. We read fashion in the magazines that the other part of the family sent us from the West. I owe it to a friend of my mother’s, Josephine Edle Von Krepl, who passed on her passion to me. She owned the first private fashion boutique in the city. In this way, Georg Lux brings a dream to life, his heart on one’s sleeve.