Christophe Lemaire and Sarah-Linh Tran, a fashion driven by the obsession with perfection

By Caroline Rousseau

Posted today at 11:00 a.m.

Sarah-Linh Tran and Christophe Lemaire.  All the photos were taken in the new premises of the Lemaire brand, rue de Turenne, in Paris, in July 2021.

It’s like a little music that sows its notes with the seasons for more than two decades. Nothing heady but we easily recognize its melody. Pleated trousers and a high constricted waist, muted colors similar to old Japanese pigments, shirt sleeves rolled up above the elbow, large officer’s coat, “onion” overlays of a sweater-jacket-trench coat, a blouse with a delicate print What could Jane March have worn in the film? The Lover, large skirt cut in a dry wool and associated with boots as for a ride through the steppe. We must not deny the imagination that sticks to the Lemaire locker room. A subtly suggested imagination, which ultimately belongs only to those who project themselves into this universe driven by an obsessive quest for natural beauty.

“Fashion has often sought alibis in contemporary art or rock’n’roll instead of assuming the idea of ​​just making beautiful clothes …” Christophe Lemaire

“We have always proposed a fashion rooted in reality, and always defended that, durability, the idea of ​​clothes that we want to keep”, explains Christophe Lemaire. If a certain madness, quite relative, sometimes comes to nest in the radicality of shoes with a strange design or in apple-green Plexiglas earrings, the originality of Lemaire lies in a very personal and millimeter interpretation of what makes the charm and quality of a piece that we would rather hang from the classics department.

Laureate of Andam (National Association of Fashion Arts) in 1990, artistic director of Lacoste for ten years and of Hermès women’s ready-to-wear for four years, the 56-year-old man, born in Besançon ( Doubs), who was a middle school and high school student in Pontoise (Oise), rather literary, for thirty years has hung on to develop, pause and then resume his own brand, which also owes its success and its image to his partner, Sarah- Linh Tran.

“I don’t know if everyone realizes it, but having an independent brand, for men and women, with complete silhouettes, accessories, and all the staging work to present it, it’s colossal as entrepreneurial project …, testifies Christophe Lemaire. I use these warlike metaphors a lot but, it’s true, creating your brand, making it grow, it’s a constant battle. However, to carry out this fight alone, it is impossible. When we started, Sarah-Linh and I, we were neither the same age nor the same experience, but we shared an interest in the same things. Surprisingly, we had common references. ”

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