Kai Nesselrath's Carven Debut Trades Saint Laurent Power for Round Shoulders and Pencil-Shaving Earrings

Kai Nesselrath showed his first collection as design director of Carven in Paris on Thursday, October 1. He comes from Saint Laurent, where The Impression reports he spent nearly a decade and most recently led womenswear design, after a brief stint at Chanel. The Daily Front Row, which reviewed the show, adds that he replaces Mark Thomas, who was at the house for about a year.

FYMOUS lists the mini skirt and jacket sets that opened the show among the highlights, with white-and-green striped pajamas, an apron dress and earrings shaped like pencil shavings. The pencil is a Carven code: the invitation was a pencil with white and green stripes, plus a blank white card to sketch on.

Carven

The brief was Madame Carven herself. The Daily Front Row, citing the show notes, says Nesselrath went through the archive for images and drawings, and listened to how the founder talked about her work. FYMOUS, quoting him, sets the two houses apart: Saint Laurent is a power woman with straight shoulders, while Marie-Louise Carven is more real and the shoulders are round.

The look he wanted was unfinished on purpose. The Daily Front Row reports the notes talk about a work-in-progress feel and a certain undone quality, and FYMOUS quotes him saying he wanted that feeling in the space too, almost like scaffolding. He staged the show at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, the same venue where Thomas showed his last Carven collection for Fall 2026, to keep some continuity rather than starting from scratch.

Carven

The Daily Front Row liked it, and said so plainly: younger, more wearable and more Carven than what came before, with subtle nods to the late 1950s and 1960s. It singles out the cotton and silk Panama dresses, skirts and trousers, the backless maxi dresses late in the show and a blue cotton maxi dress whose draping, it says, looked almost like a bed sheet pinned to the model, and worked anyway.

Carven

It was not all praise. The review calls the empty belt loops on early tops and skirts distracting, even though Nesselrath meant them to evoke a sense of memory, and it found an oversized navy trench frumpy, a green skirt suit out of place and a pair of pants it likened to used tissues. Its verdict was still a success overall.

Carven's own show page lists 34 looks. The week also had a debut at Courrèges, Nesselrath spent nearly a decade at Saint Laurent, where Anthony Vaccarello's Saint Laurent show Paris saw earlier this week.