Christophe Lemaire and Sarah-Linh Tran

Christophe Lemaire and Sarah-Linh Tran are the designers who lead Lemaire, a Paris fashion house known for quiet, practical clothes in a narrow range of colors. Their names are often misspelled, so to be clear: Christophe, not Christopher, and Sarah-Linh, not Sara-Linh.

Lemaire founded the label in 1991, after working for Christian Lacroix, and later led the artistic direction of Lacoste and then of Hermès. Since 2014 he has worked on his own house. Tran trained in literary publishing before moving into fashion, and joined Lemaire as co-artistic director in 2010. The two also co-direct a research and design studio in Paris for the Japanese retailer Uniqlo.

This study draws on their own statements in published interviews and on the house’s description of itself. It is not a guide to buying their clothes. It is about what their way of thinking teaches anyone trying to buy less.

Clothes for everyday life

In interviews, Lemaire comes back again and again to one idea: clothes are for real life. In a 2016 conversation with Interview Magazine, he said his drive as a designer was to make everyday life a little better and more functional. He described his interest as “the poetry of reality,” and talked about the close relationship people have with the few good clothes they really love.

The house describes its own work the same way: clothing and accessories designed for everyday life, made to be layered, reinterpreted and lived in over time. In a 2015 interview with SSENSE, Lemaire explained his interest in traditional workwear from around the world. Such clothes, he said, are made for a purpose, with nothing superfluous, and designed to last.

He also put the long view plainly: “I have always been interested in building a vestiaire.” A vestiaire is a wardrobe, the whole set of clothes a person owns, not a single season’s look.

What they wear themselves

In a 2014 question-and-answer interview with Remodelista, both described what they actually wear. Lemaire said, “I like the concept of a personal uniform,” and that he dislikes clothes that are fragile or precious and prefers functional, durable ones. His uniform at the time was made-to-measure leather boots, tapered chinos, a fisherman’s rib sweater in yak wool and a vintage wool and alpaca coat.

Asked to describe her own style, Tran answered in two words: “Practical and discreet.” She said she always wears fine silk and cashmere sweaters as a close layer under shirts or pullovers. In the same feature she described the woman they design for as someone who has found her style, for whom clothing is “a way to simplify her life.”

Two details stand out for anyone trying to buy less. One is that a designer whose job is to make new clothes chose a vintage coat for his own uniform. The other is the order of their priorities: practical first, durable first, and style built on top.

The suitcase test

The clearest lesson came in the 2016 interview. Describing how he began a line of everyday basics, Lemaire said he told his team to forget themes and mood boards. Instead, imagine you suddenly had to leave for two months. Which twenty essential pieces would you put in the suitcase, and how would you make them good enough that you would want to wear them?

That is a designer’s version of our one-suitcase wardrobe, and it works for a reader too. Twenty pieces for two months can only work if each one goes with most of the others. Compatibility stops being a nice extra and becomes the whole test.

Buying for compatibility

Here is what that test does to an ordinary purchase. Before you buy anything, ask how many things you already own it will work with. If the answer is three or more, it joins your wardrobe. If it needs a new pair of trousers, new shoes and a new bag before it looks right, it is not one purchase. It is the first link of a chain.

The Diderot effect needs exactly that kind of mismatch to get started: one new thing that makes the things around it look wrong. A wardrobe built as a set, the way Lemaire describes a vestiaire, leaves little room for it. A new piece that fits the set makes nothing else look old, so the next purchase is a replacement, not an upgrade.

Lemaire also warned, in the same 2016 interview, about the thin line between basics that are too fashionable and basics that are boring. For a reader, the balance is simpler. Pieces that are too fashionable date fast and pull new pieces in behind them. Pieces that work with everything you own keep the wardrobe calm.

What a reader takes from it

• Choose function first. Ask what a piece is for before you ask whether you like it.
• Prefer durable to delicate. Fragile clothes get worn rarely and replaced often, the worst combination for cost per wear.
• Think in wardrobes, not outfits. Every purchase joins a set you already own, and a capsule is one way to see that set clearly.
• Keep an old piece in your uniform. A good vintage or long-owned coat anchors a wardrobe better than a new one.
• Pack the suitcase in your head. If you had to leave for two months with twenty things, would this be one of them?

None of this requires owning a single piece from their house. The lesson is in the questions they ask, and anyone can ask them in their own closet.