LEMAIRE | Elzévir — Local services in Paris

I have long been a devoted patron of Lemaire not merely for the garments, but for the spirit they once evoked: an intimacy with fabric, intellect in form, restraint (I would often drive from Oxford to the Paris store)

But lately, I find myself watching the brand undergo a transformation so painfully familiar it borders on tragic and quite boring actually; the slow and predictable descent into corporate homogenisation in preparation -one suspects- for acquisition by one of the great luxury conglomerates…perhaps LVMH?

This transition carries with it all the symptoms of aesthetic flattening. Step into the Lemaire boutique today and the air no longer vibrates with individuality. Instead, one is met with a perfectly curated sameness. retail associates adorned uniformly in those now-ubiquitous engineer jackets, their expressions quiet, vacant, seemingly stripped of personality or personal styling. It is as though the staff themselves have become mannequins, reduced to silent placeholders in a set design optimised for efficiency and scalability.

once there was nuance, now narrative branding. once each employee wore the brand with interpretive agency, now only the unspoken imperative of uniformity…not in the poetic sense Lemaire once aspired to, but in the bleak logic of cost-saving and commercial legibility.

The garments themselves, once rich in tactility and complexity, have begun to betray the signs of their own dilution. The quality is no longer consonant with the price. And yet, the house insists with a sort of patronising persistence (the young French manager) nothing has changed. But something essential has changed: the soul of the brand no longer resides in the fabric, nor in the people who represent it.

And this is perhaps the most bitter irony: as the co-directors publish books and speak of poetry, ecology, and inner worlds, the brand's human front the people in the shops are reduced to hollow vessels. The gestures of care remain in theory, but are no longer embodied. One is reminded of Heidegger’s warning against the “enframing” of Being where people and things alike are reduced spectacle. Lemaire, in its current arc, reveals a familiar trajectory: growth at the expense of interiority. The same pattern seen in countless other houses now replays here. Not to forget most of those who work in store and probably HQ all come from Prada, MiuMiu etc etc. The brand may one day sell to LVMH or a comparable leviathan, the founders may retreat to pastoral life, speaking softly of sustainability even as their enterprise has succumbed to the very systems it once seemed to resist. It is painful, because this brand once meant something to me. It clothed me in thought. I built a wardrobe on it. And now, I hesitate to wear it…not out of aesthetic boredom, but because I no longer recognise the ethical or spiritual signature that once made it worth inhabiting. So let me say this, plainly:
If you wish to preserve what made this brand beautiful, begin with the people who animate it. Let them express themselves. Let them feel dignified in what they wear. A brand is not merely cut and cloth it is the lived experience of those who carry it forward, day after day. Until then, Lemaire...

I went to the store yesterday to buy a specific dress. The shop was empty and there were more salespeople than clients. It took a while until someone came to check on me, but fine. The person brought me one of the pieces in a wrong size. I was left alone at the fitting room for a long time, until I went out to see if someone could bring me the right size. The first girl I saw told me she was busy with another client and told me to adress my request to my own salesperson. Which I would have, were she anywhere to be found. I waited again, then went out again, where a male salesperson asked me if I were in need of assistance. I told him I wanted to try said dress in another size, and he told me he would find the salerperson I was assigned to, instead of simply fetching the size I wanted. I waited a good long while until “my” salesperson came over. She proceeded to disappear again, I think she was working the stock or something. I choose the color and size I wanted to buy and then went to checkout, alone. The girl who first told me she was busy was there folding stuff, and I knew better than to adress her twice - god forbid she plays a part in her colleague’s comission. I stood in front of her, invisible. While I was waiting, dress and credit card in hand, another 3 male salespeople went by. No one looked at me twice. They were busy with putting stuff back on racks and chatting amongs themselves. Eventually I gave up, went back to the fitting room, put the dress where I’d found it and left the store, while being adressed by… no one. It is not the first time that I have been poorly treated at this shop, which is why I end up prefering to buy online. Staff is very young, and clearly there are no incentives in place for good quality service. Everyone just minds their own sales and comission. I find this sad cause Lemaire is my favorite french brand, but this repeated negative experience at their store is putting me off,...

I want to start off by saying, I love Lemaire, I've been a big fan of Christophe Lemaire's work and also the design ethos and sensibilities that are present in Lemaire's collections. I have purchased many Lemaire pieces online, because I live in the States, so I really wanted to enjoy my experience at the Flagship in the Marais. Unfortunately it was extremely disappointing. The staff here are very dismissive and cold (I'm well aware of this attitude being prevalent in luxury retail SA's, but this was beyond anything I've ever experienced while shopping). I came in with the intention of getting 2 bags and other pieces i've been eyeing, but every time I would ask for help or had any questions, the SA's would barely answer my questions and seemed exasperated at the thought of telling me if something was in stock or in available in a different color. They even forgot my request to check something in the stock room that I wanted to try on. I waited around 10mins before I politely asked again, and they acted like I had grown 2 heads and made it seem like I was rushing them. Also the SA's outnumbered the clients, so i'm not sure why there was even a big delay? I was pretty annoyed at the lack of service, and didn't feel like spending my money here, and left with a bad taste in my mouth. I honestly wished I never went because my positive perception of the brand has honestly gone way down. Please hire a team that wants to be there and help out clients, or at least train them on very basic customer service...If I wanted to get judged by a group of Parisians for 30mins, I would've stood in front of a brasserie in my underwear! Good riddance!

Beautiful...