At Carven, Thomas is inspired by the “joyful spirit” of the house’s founder, who passed away in 2015 at the age of 105. “If you live to 105, you’ve got to be doing something right,” he says. “She had kangaroos in her back garden and was a big collector of ceramic birds. There’s something a bit off about her. I love that she liked her costume jewellery. She looked like fun.”

Thomas found the starting point of the SS26 collection in a book on the house titled Carven (first published by Gründ in 1995). The book recounts that, working with a botanist named Marcel Lecoufle, Madame Carven created a white orchid that had a green centre. “I’m not someone that’s so into florals, but when I thought about [that] orchid, I loved the sensuality. It has a toughness. Then it has fragility. We started to play around with the orchid reference. I knew that I wanted to do it in an abstract way, in the structure of the garments. So it’s very subtle. We have trousers with the waistband falling down, a skirt looking like a petal.”

Part one of the collection is all white and écrus. “I like the idea that we start this new chapter with lots of whites, creams and écrus — almost as a palate cleanser for what’s to come,” he says. As a nod to the founder’s French background, he used ‘Made in France’ fabrics, including a skirt in silk and moiré pieces.

Photo: Courtesy of Carven

The show will be held on the ground floor of the maison’s HQ, in the entrance, courtyard and store,  creating a circle that the models will walk in. Thomas worked for the first time with stylist Emilie Kareh, while a cinema reviewer is behind the show notes. For the soundtrack, he reached out to a DJ from London-based music platform NTS, who has never before done a fashion show soundtrack.

How to stand out in such a noisy season? “The idea is that you’re coming into our home,” Thomas says. “It will be a moment of calm, of coming out of the chaos of everything else that’s happening with the big brands. It will smell great. It will feel comfortable — the lighting, the seating, we want it to be a kind of beautiful pause in everything else that’s going on. And then after that, we’re going to throw you back out.”

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