Simone Lefèvre's studio occupies a former printworks in the 10th arrondissement, its concrete floors and high steel windows preserved with the kind of deliberate restraint that marks everything she makes. There are no mood boards. The walls are bare except for a single length of unbleached linen pinned at one corner. "Decoration is a decision," she says, handing me a small glass of water. "So is the absence of it."

Lefèvre is forty-one, trained in Antwerp, and now widely regarded as one of the most significant voices in a new French fashion that is less interested in being seen than in being felt. Her suits have been described as quietly radical. Her clients — she dislikes the word — describe them as the clothes they reach for when something important is happening.

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Simone Lefèvre in her 10th arrondissement studio, Paris, January 2026. Photography: placeholder.

On the Woman She Designs For

GB
The phrase "I design for women who don't need to be looked at" — where did that come from?
SL
It came from frustration, honestly. So much fashion is still designed to attract attention. The silhouette is engineered to turn heads. The detail is positioned to be noticed. And I kept asking myself: who is this actually for? The woman, or the observer? I wanted to make the opposite. Clothes that serve the person inside them, not the person looking at them from across a room.
GB
Does that mean invisible clothes? Clothes that disappear?
SL
Not at all. Invisible would be a failure. I want clothes that you feel completely inside — where the construction is doing something for you, not just something to you. A jacket that makes you stand differently. A trouser that makes the room feel smaller and more manageable. Powerful, yes. Visible, yes. But not performing. There's a difference between a woman who is present and a woman who is on display. I'm interested in presence.

"A woman who has nothing to prove wears the most interesting clothes. She has stopped trying to be read and started wanting to feel."

— Simone Lefèvre

On Craft and Construction

GB
Your tailoring is known for its weight distribution — the way a coat sits on a shoulder. Can you talk about the technical work behind that?
SL
The shoulder is everything in tailoring. It is where the garment begins, structurally and psychologically. Most tailoring is designed to give the impression of a certain shoulder shape — to broaden, to square, to create a silhouette. I'm less interested in that. I want the shoulder to become invisible as a structural element so that the body can forget about its clothes and get on with being in the world. That requires a lot of work. Months of fitting. Constant adjustment. But when it works, the woman puts the coat on and her posture changes without her thinking about it. That's the goal.
GB
You spent time in Savile Row before returning to Paris. What did that experience change?
SL
It gave me a patience I didn't have before. Row tailoring is about accumulation — you work the same technique for years until it becomes second nature, and only then do you start to understand what you're actually capable of. I was impatient when I arrived. I wanted to express things. By the time I left, I wanted to solve things. The expression follows the solution, if you're doing it right.

On the Fashion Industry

GB
You've spoken critically about the fashion calendar. Are you still on it?
SL
Barely. We show once a year, in January, and it is a private presentation for perhaps sixty people. I have no interest in a show for shows' sake. The show format — the runway, the theatre, the noise — is designed to generate content. That content is then consumed and discarded. I'm making things to be kept. There's a fundamental incompatibility there.
GB
And when you imagine the woman wearing your coat in twenty years?
SL
She is not thinking about it. That is the whole point. She has stopped thinking about it years ago and it has simply become part of who she is. That's the dream. Not that she remembers the coat. That she's forgotten she's wearing one.