Lanvin

The couture house that began in the 1920s with Jeanne Lanvin has been reinvented by the talented and indefatigable Albert Elbaz. In October 2007 he unveiled this, the revamped showroom that set new aesthetic standards for luxury fashion retailing. Lanvin has an exhibition room devoted to her in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, and this apartment-boutique comes close, incorporating original furniture from the Lanvin archive that has been restored. All this would be nothing, of course, if the clothes themselves were not exquisite.