Paris preview evening, in pictures
On 7 October we took over a café terrace around the corner from our Marais boutique for The Ivey Circle preview of The Orchard Collection, Part II. For one evening the design team swapped the atelier in Marylebone for wicker chairs, patio heaters and a long zinc bar.
About eighty members came, many with a partner or a friend in tow. This is what the evening looked like, what people tried on, and what we are planning for next year.
Setting the terrace
The venue was Café Sévigné, a small corner café on the rue de Sévigné with a covered terrace that seats around fifty. Its owner, Bruno Lefèvre, has been feeding our Paris team breakfast since the boutique opened, and he agreed to close to the public from six o’clock. We moved the tables into two long rows, lit the length of them with candles in glass jars, and laid a lambswool blanket over the back of every chair.
The blankets turned out to be the quiet success of the night. They were our Oversized Lambswool Scarf in Loden Check and Ochre, folded double, and by nine o’clock half the guests were wearing them. We should not have been surprised. Early October in Paris is warm until the sun goes behind the rooftops, and then it isn’t.
The pieces
We brought the four Part II pieces we had been talking about all summer: the long shearling coat, the cashmere wrap, the pleated wool skirt and the apple-red trench, in a full size run of each, hung on two rails at the end of the terrace. Elif Şahin, who cut the shearling pattern, stood beside the rail all evening and answered questions about skins and seams until her voice gave out.
The shearling coat was reserved in every size within the hour. We had expected it to do well, but not that quickly. The trench was the piece people photographed most, and the cashmere wrap was the piece people put on and didn’t want to take off. Several members tried the pleated skirt with the Cashmere Roll-neck from the men’s collection, which is exactly the kind of thing we hope happens when the clothes leave the studio.
I came for the trench and left having reserved the shearling. I think that is what my husband would call a successful evening.
— Hélène Moreau, Ivey Circle member, Paris
Cider, comté and a short talk
Bruno served a dry Normandy cider instead of champagne, which felt right for a collection named after an orchard, and a long board of comté, saucisson and warm bread. At half past seven I gave a short talk, ten minutes and no slides, about the three weeks of shooting in Tyrol and Scotland and why so many of the Part II pieces were designed for the coldest weeks of the year.
The questions afterwards were the best part. Members asked about hem allowances, about whether the trench could be shortened without losing the belt line, and about how we decide what to make in what quantity. One gentleman asked whether we would ever make the shearling coat in apple red. The honest answer is that we tried, and the dye went patchy on the fleece.
What we learned from the guest list
Our Paris boutique manager, Juliette Garnier, built the guest list from Circle members who had booked private appointments in the past year, and nearly everyone who received an invitation replied within a day. A handful travelled in from Lyon and Brussels, and one couple came from Geneva on the afternoon train and went straight back on the last one. Several told us that the most useful thing about the evening was talking to the people who make the clothes, rather than the clothes themselves.
That changed our plans. Future previews will keep the design team on the floor all evening, and we will bring a fitter from the atelier so that members can be pinned for alterations on the spot.
Next year
We’ll host preview evenings in all five cities: London, New York, Paris, Chicago and Los Angeles. Each will be small, on a terrace or in a back room near the boutique, and each will be for Circle members first. If you are not yet a member, membership is complimentary, and the invitations go out by email about three weeks ahead.
In the meantime, the Paris boutique has the full Part II rail for try-ons. If you want to bring the terrace home, start with the Soft Leather Crossbody, which several of our guests were carrying.
