Much has been said about the lack of female designers in fashion these days. But then there has been a group of under the radar female designers like Louise Trotter who has done remarkable work at Joseph in her London days and then came on board at Lacoste in Paris to give the tennis giant a very serious fashion footprint. Somehow slowed down by the pandemic, Lacoste decided to go back to a more sports centric approach and Trotter has landed at Carven, a house that dates to 1945 and saw a big revival under Guillaume Henry who started a big house career from there with Nina Ricci and now Patou and did not really work under the stewardship of duo Alexis Martial and Adrien Caillaudaud nor Serge Ruffieux. Trotter showed her terrific second collection yesterday and it looks like she is on to something. Modern sportswear which defies a day or evening label in figure holding fabrics with little twists where the back of an anorak shell is worn in the front. She seems to go by the Phoebe Philo playbook and has hired Peter Miles to recreate the Carven logo with a bold lower-case font playing up the Paris roots in bold upper case and handed out a bottle green scarf with the new insignia to each guest. Miles created Philo’s Celine logo which was then famously redone by Hedi Slimane dropping the accent. So, associating herself with the right people is certainly a strength of Trotter’s who defines fashion by developing a system of strong archetypes which make up a modern wardrobe.

Back of an anorak flipped to the front

Louise Trotter’s F/W 2024 collection for Carven