After stores in Paris (near the historic Saint-Sulpice church), Tokyo and Shanghai, and ahead of SoHo in New York, Carven has opened the doors to its London flagship, just off Brompton Cross. The space houses menswear, womenswear and accessory collections.

Conceived as a giant organised wardrobe by Eric Chevallier, in the spirit of creative director Guillaume Henry’s vision of the label, with long Parisian benches, mosaics and exclusive Stockman mannequins, it’s a shiny emblem of this young Frenchman’s talent. In four years Henry has taken the dormant couture house (a great fashion name of the 20th century), and made it a rapid ready-to-wear hit.

In town for the opening and a blowout party that evening, we spoke to the charismatic designer about his vision, which celebrates the odd without losing touch of reality.

Dean Mayo Davies: You’ve managed to do something which is very difficult to do: take a sleeping house and make it a runaway success. Are you aware of the impact you’ve had?

Guillaume Henry: I don’t know if I want to think about that too much. I mean every day has to be enthusiastic and you have to enjoy the job still, keeping pressure to a minimum to stay on top of things. You know how it works in fashion: you can never focus on the success as there is season after season and every season it’s the first one all over again.

Like you said, it could have been a huge challenge – it wasn’t easy but I started with this company almost as a shell to work from. No shops, some archives, but no set distribution or brand image. It’s difficult to fill this empty page but that also inspires some confidence in starting anew. I was lucky enough to write my own words, so to speak.

DMD: Having that clean slate is a rare opportunity. What about your approach to design? It feels very friendly and human and fashion isn’t often like that.

GH: Yes, because there is just a saturation of similar clothes everywhere in the business. Too many pieces of clothing. It’s full. If you want the right pants you can take your pick of the same ones from pretty much everywhere!

When I’m designing I ask myself, ‘OK, is it something I can wear easily?’ I don’t like anything restrictive, painful or complicated to wear, but also I wonder if it’s inspired enough to stand out and not look like everything else out there. I think my approach is to make things desirable, easy to understand but still appealing and creative. That’s very important.

DMD: The collars have become almost a signature for the brand.

GH: Oh yes – but again, that is sort of by chance, you know! When I started at Carven I wanted to make a brand that is not obvious, I don’t want to say intellectual because I think it gets too conceptual, but I like the idea of fashion that can be a little more emotional. I remember that once I was doing a fitting with the fittings model and she was wearing a draped jersey dress. She was looking very sexy – and that’s a word I don’t like at all! So I asked myself how I could make it less overt because it was a little too much, my friends would never wear it like that. I had the idea of the detachable collar and with this simple accessory it changed the entire outfit. Suddenly the girl was still attractive but in a shy way, like someone you know who has fire under the eyes. It wasn’t obvious. I don’t like obvious, even with menswear, like being obviously masculine: I hate that. I like the idea of pink for men; fluffy fabrics – why not? I’m not designing dresses for men but you can have a more sensitive approach to things I feel.

DMD: What was the inspiration for the Fall Winter collection?

GH: I wanted to work with the idea of suiting. I’m wearing a jacket but not as a full suit, with coordinating pants and I wanted to build on this idea with a Carven twist. My idea was to think of a man that was going to work on his first day in a huge building. There is an area in Paris called La Défense and it’s like Wall Street. I thought of this guy who works there and scales the building as if he is climbing a mountain each day. So it was a mix between office wear and mountainous ski wear. It was very primary in terms of colour with navy and grey, things that look conventional but aren’t really.

DMD: I love the parka with the bright fox hood.

GH: Exactly! The fur around the hood that is something very standard but ours is bright red or blue as a little twist. It’s not about a brand new concept, there are no third sleeves in our jackets, for example but a focus on simple differences which bring creativity to the silhouette.

I like the idea that at Carven we can give a wrong colour for men, be a little more fun and charming and the idea of someone dressed in Carven that you want to talk to! Who you would like to get to know because they look interesting.

DMD: Have any pieces made their way into your own wardrobe?

GH: Actually you know when I started working in menswear I was a little worried about the idea of having to design for myself as a customer. It’s kind of stupid that I’m always wearing the same thing like a white t-shirt, navy pants and Converse shoes. But sometimes I design something and wonder who exactly would wear it – and inevitably I do! I feel the desire that the customer would feel too, I really liked the mohair pieces from this collection. Those are the kind of jumpers you can normally only find in flea markets but here they have a sort of punk air to them.