19th-century fashion designer Jacques Doucet inspires 21st-century contemporary furniture collection

In France, ‘patrimoine’ is good even if the word sounds like some currently unpopular ideas. The French patrimoine, which translates to ‘heritage’, involves preserving its rich cultural and artistic endeavors, especially in art and design. In recent times, some of yesteryear’s most prestigious brand names have been revived by savvy business people who see the value in this legacy.

To wit, brands such as Buly, Cire Trudon, Carven, Patou, Rouvenat, Au Depart, Vionnet, and Moynat were ‘sleeping beauty’ brands revived recently. The latter two are thanks to Arnaud de Lummen, the founder and Managing Director of Luvanis, a firm dedicated to restoring these heritage brands. His most recent venture takes a different spin on the idea by using 19th-century couturier Jacques Doucet’s aesthetic, focused on art and adapting it to a line of furniture in partnership with design duo Garcé & Dimofski and distributed by the Invisible Collection.

FashionNetwork.com spoke with de Lummen on how the new collection of upscale home design wares came to fruition.

“Doucet is remembered mainly as an art collector, which was his passion. In that era, being a fashion designer was not so great; he got more credit and was more prestigious as an art collector. One hundred years ago, the couturier was not always invited to society parties and events; it was like being a tradesman,” de Lummen told FashionNetwork.com during a tour of the collection that made its global debut at the Invisible Collection’s Upper East Side townhouse.

(Invisible Collection, with locations in Paris, London and Los Angeles too, partners with Maisons d’Art from Le19M, Chanel’s savoir-faire workspace and Mobilier National, the French national institution for preserving and promoting French design.)

Thus, de Lummen and his team, which included the design duo Olivier Garcé and Clio Dimofski of Garcé & Dimofski, didn’t look towards Doucet’s body of work – known for fine shirtings, heavily embroidered lingerie, and Couture gowns – but rather than the aesthetic he culled from his extensive art collection. Doucet was an early embracer of Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee and Marcel Duchamp.

According to Garcé, the collection is based mainly on the spirit of these design ideals. Highlights of the 18-piece collection include bouclé-covered curved sofas, wood and ceramic coffee tables, upholstered stools, Lesage embroidery rugs, cushions, and drapes that reflect the DNA codes of the Jacques Doucet brand.

The brand was formed in 1816 and boasted clients such as Napoleon II, verified by old invoices found in the brand’s archives, according to de Lummen. The founder’s grandson, Jacques, brought the brand into haute couture during the Gilded Age and boasted societies’ top clients (think Sarah Bernhardt, Carrie Astor and Edith Wharton.) Another testimony to the younger Doucet’s vision was his hiring of then-budding designers Paul Poiret and Madame Vionnet. The company was located on Rue de la Paix in a shop that now houses a Figaret.
 
The label closed shortly after he died in 1929 and was owned by the family until recently. After Doucet’s passing, auctions of his artwork and personal belongings helped draw attention to his aesthetic vision, and soon, other 20th-century designers such as Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld looked to Doucet’s highly curated and cultivated lifestyle as inspiration for their work. Saint Laurent’s penchant for his work recently inspired an exhibit at Paris’ Maison Saint Laurent.
 
“Jacques Doucet was a tastemaker, which is very popular and normal now. It’s the person, the fashion, the home, the look, everything, the full picture,” said de Lummen, adding, “Let’s imagine the Lagerfeld brand as is, and then you want to reintroduce Lagerfeld 50 years from now. He was a revolutionary designer but also well-known for how he designed his house, furniture, books, etc. You could restart a Lagerfeld selection based on that.”
 
Doucet’s knack for seeing potential in Vionnet and Poiret was similar to how de Lummen sees sleeping beauty brands. Brands such as jewelry house Vever, Poiret, which leaned into its beauty roots, Moynat, now in the LVMH stable as well, and Vionnet, which had a revival with the late designer Sophia Kokosalaki that thrived at Barney’s New York, came to market with the help of de Lummen.

“You own brand names by registering the name. When the domain name is not used in commerce, it goes into the public domain, where it’s first come, first serve. My work is first to gather all the rights and ownership into one single ownership and then see what could be done,” he continued, adding that many times, names are held by Chinese eager to buy names.
 
Next up for Luvanis is Charles James, the English-American designer known for inventive and sculptural evening gowns and the ubiquitous down-filled jacket. James was at his peak in the 1940s and died penniless in 1978, but he remains a top inspiration for designers today. Luvanis has owned the name since 2014 and even successfully staved off Harvey Weinstein in 2016, who tried to get the rights to distribute the brand. However, the Charles James name has not yielded a collection to offer. De Lummen says the 2014 Met Gala and theme ‘Charles James: Beyond Fashion’ helped spur public interest in the name again and the books that followed.
 
“James only did like 30 pieces, not 300 pieces, in his career, which is very small, but every piece is a piece of art. He needs to be reintroduced because his creations are still very strong and strong historically, so they are still relevant today and ten years from now. So we are not rushing to do something. According to the best opportunities that arise and when we have the right ingredients, we say, okay, let’s go,” de Lummen said, adding, “Sometimes people say, why do you wake them up? I also told them that plenty of Chinese people purchase these names. You could have people doing it precisely in a way with no culture, etc. Even if we revive a brand, if they go in other hands and we are not responsible for what is happening next, at least what we do, we want everybody to say, ‘Okay, they understood the DNA of the brand, they understood it.’ For us, it’s a patrimony of French culture.”