Architectural context

In 1920 Jeanne Lanvin bought the former mansion of Marquise Arconati-Visconti at 16 rue Barbet-de-Jouy in Paris’s 7^th arrondissement. Few alterations were made to the building itself, built in the 19^th century in the Palladian style, except for the creation of a dining room in 1921-1922, decorated by the interior designer Armand Albert Rateau, with whom Jeanne Lanvin had just created the firm Lanvin Décoration. The couturière decided to not live in the mansion itself, which became the home of her daughter Marguerite and her son-in-law, Comte Jean de Polignac. As the building was being refurbished, she built a new, adjoining wing to house her own residence on the site of the mansion’s outbuildings from 1921 to 1925, designed by the architects Richard Bouwens van der Boijen and Maurice Boutterin. She entrusted the interior decoration and furnishing to Armand Albert Rateau.

Two of the extension’s three storeys housed Jeanne Lanvin’s reception rooms. The ground floor, where she gave parties and balls and staged fashion shows, comprised a vast hall and the main staircase, opening on to a study-library leading to a large drawing room. There was also a small guest’s room, later converted into the couturière’s office with display cases for her collection of objects. On the first floor, reserved for close acquaintances, the dining room opened on to a terrace. Only the family’s inner circle had access to Jeanne Lanvin’s private rooms on the second floor, comprising her bathroom, bedroom and boudoir opening on to a terrace. The bathroom was the first to be completed in 1924, followed by the bedroom and boudoir in 1925. Jeanne Lanvin lived there until she died in 1946.

Private staircase leading to the second floor