Carven Fall 2024 Ready-to-Wear

While it’s still early days, Louise Trotter is building a compelling vision at Carven. Her second show, presented in the same raw office space as the first, laid out a thoughtful and assured continuation rather than any sort of pivot, allowing us to get a clearer sense of her intentions. Without doubt, this is a more mature Carven than recent iterations. From the restrained and tonal palette (a jolt of red or chartreuse notwithstanding) to the masculine-feminine permutations of fabric and shape, Trotter is elevating the brand through both image and positioning. Mind you, her women are neither staid nor stuffy. They wear looks that blur notions of day- or eveningwear and put forth the body in less obvious ways—tops unzipped or slightly undressed from the back. They might also wear dancer’s layers with polished blazers and tailored wrap skirts, part of a laissez-faire approach to ladylike. “I want clothes to be intimate and personal and loved through the way I put them together,” she said.