Patou is for “fashion enthusiasts, not fashion monsters”

Guillaume Henry was 13, living in the French countryside, when he wrote a letter to Christian Lacroix, a designer who made him dream of working in fashion. “I opened the letter with ‘I know you’ll never read this’.”

Little did the teenager know that Lacroix would not only reply (“As you can see, I did read your letter,” Lacroix wrote back), some three decades later Henry would also hold the same position that his idol once did: that of artistic director at revived French maison Patou.

Yes, the same couture house that was originally launched by Jean Patou—believed to be one of the most elegant men in Europe—in 1914. The brand garnered great success through the 1920s and 1930s for stripping womenswear of restrictive contraptions and giving it a more relaxed, liberated update. Sportswear and swimwear were important elements of Patou’s lexicon; tennis champion Suzanne Lenglen was his first muse, and Coco Chanel his fiercest rival.

After the founder’s passing, the likes of Marc Bohan, Karl Lagerfeld, and Jean Paul Gaultier helmed the brand. The brand exited the scene after Christian Lacroix’s creative direction in the ’80s, only to be revived by LVMH in 2018. In a full-circle moment, Henry (previously of Carven and Nina Ricci) was brought in to pick up where Lacroix left off and give a fresh lease to the heritage house.

“Serendipity,” I quip instantly.

“It’s funny you say that,” Henry smiles. “When we were bringing the brand back, we wanted to make T-shirts with kind, uplifting words,” says the designer.

Guess what the very first T-shirt said? Serendipity.

Did someone say joie de vivre?

We are seated in the Patou headquarters in Île de la Cité in Paris, a natural island in the Seine in the heart of the French capital. Only a short walk from the Notre Dame cathedral is this late-19th century building—a girls’ school and a speakeasy in its previous lives—that now serves as chez Patou. I climb the stairs past a bubblegum-pink wall painted with the brand name to reach the meeting room. Pink enough, I should add, to brighten up even a rainy and damp morning.

Lightness is the very raison d’etre of the brand, Henry stresses, dressed in a navy sweater with a classic French-twist scarf tie. He was “fed up with how dark the fashion industry could be and wanted to be part of something light and optimistic” when he was offered Patou. “I never see fashion as an answer to the world’s problems. But I don't want it to be part of the problem either. I really feel like I manifested this role,” he muses.

In the hour that follows, we talk about everything from serendipity, manifestation, superstitions and psychics to the brand’s impending debut in India with Galeries Lafayette this November. Warm, candid, and with an ease that mirrors the spirit of the brand, Henry possesses what the woo-woo set—including me—would call great energy.

Given his long association with Galeries Lafayette in Paris (turns out, he also lives just a block away from the Haussmann store), the iconic French department store felt like the perfect partner for Patou’s passage to India.

They will launch with the spring/summer ’26 collection ‘Joy’, after its namesake perfume Jean Patou created in the 1930s, priced at about 1,000 euros for 30 ml—the most expensive perfume in the world back then. The collection is replete with LBDs, striped suits, lace skirts, and taffeta gowns. Very joie de vivre. Very elevated ease. “I wanted it to be a breath of fresh air. Enthusiastic, full of charm, and nothing overly conceptual,” Henry explains.

Part of the brand’s collections are made right here in Mumbai, with embroidery and export house Aamir Beading, with whom Henry has been partnering for many years now. “I love working with Indian players—there’s never a problem, there’s always a solution.”

“We call it jugaad,” I say, trying to explain our uniquely Indian knack for figuring things out. “Can you write that down for me, please? I need to tattoo that!” Henry jokes, pushing a Post-it in my direction. “It’s such a Patou state of mind, too.”

India, meet Patou

This Patou mindset, it’s very ‘you can sit with us’. “There’s always this idea of optimism, joy, and positivity. I like fashion that’s easy to get,” he says. “A jumper is a jumper. A dress is a dress. But it’s also a jumper and a dress with a soul, and at Patou that soul is enthusiastic.”

He doesn’t want fashion (or his brand) to consume you, but that doesn’t mean it should be ordinary or mundane either. It’s a delicate balance, one Henry strikes in every collection. The result? Designs that have struck a chord with everyone from Anne Hathaway, Taylor Swift and Susan Sarandon to Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Poorna Jagannathan. Sabrina Carpenter recently wore a custom bodysuit onstage at her ongoing tour, and Anna Wintour was seen in two custom floral-print dresses from the spring/summer 2026 line.

Is there a definition for this quintessential Patou woman? “If you know how to smile, then you are one of them,” he says. “The Patou woman is approachable. She’s somebody you want to talk to—fashion enthusiasts, not fashion monsters,” he says.

Ultimately, Henry thinks of Patou as the whole wardrobe—from vests and bowler bags to twinsets and cocktail dresses. He’s not designing for just one particular occasion or aesthetic or to douse you in his vision of what you should look like. He’d rather you interpret his clothes as you please. “You can be sexy, you can be shy, you can be corporate, you can be girly.” Basically, you can be you.

He’s “super curious” to see how this will be received in India. “India has this dynamism and energy that I can't wait to witness. It’s also so creatively inspiring,” he says, reminiscing about his last trip seven years ago, when he visited New Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra. “Though, I was mostly surrounded by Europeans. I definitely need to plan better for a more local experience,” he laughs.

What’s on the wish list this time? He’d love to go to Alibuag, he tells me. And once he realises my chunky silver bracelet is by an Indian brand (Inca, in case you were wondering), he shares how excited he is to explore Indian labels too. I chalk up a preliminary list for him—Kala Ghoda and Chor Bazaar, to begin with.

Turn the page

He’s pleasantly surprised when I mention that I’ve seen their logo vests on well-travelled Indian women. “There are so many markets that did not know Jean Patou. And we did not want to burden them with that heavy history.” So, when Henry was presented with this unique challenge of making a dormant century-plus-old legacy brand young and fresh again, the answer was simple: retain the soul, reset the approach.

The first order of business? Rechristening Jean Patou to Patou. “It sounds like a sweet nickname, something with familiarity. There’s love in the way you say it.”

Next up, rethinking references to match the current context. “The final product had to evolve because that’s the nature of society.” For instance, Henry took the theme of movement that was important to Jean Patou’s innovations in sportswear but he reinterpreted it as clothes that can go from early morning to the late evening and be worn with sneakers or stilettos.

Henry didn’t have any archives to lean into—most of them were lost over the decades as the brand changed hands. Henry rebuilt Patou’s past through people. What ensued were months of museum visits, meetings with collectors and former customers, tracking vintage pieces, accounts from models and artists, and speaking with past creative directors (yes, including Lacroix). “I did this until I was fed. And then it was time for me to write my own chapter.”

As for what he once wrote to Lacroix in those letters? “I was asking for his advice. The most important thing he said to me was: do what feels right to you.” Something that set up the 13-year-old for an illustrious career in fashion, ultimately resulting in the reinvention of Patou—anchored in intuition, instinct, and just the right amount of magic from the universe.