Lou Menaïs came to us with a clear intention: to build something unmistakable, yet not overtly branded. The goal wasn’t to design another name-based logo, but to create a graphic object, something closer to an ornamental drawing than a traditional wordmark. A sign you recognize instantly, without feeling like you’re wearing a label.
We developed a monogram rooted in her initials, two Ls and an M, intertwined to form a heart-like structure. The mark plays between structure and softness, echoing both the rigidity of Parisian ironwork and the fluid curves found across Mediterranean cultures. It’s a shape that feels architectural, but also personal.
Designed to be endlessly adaptable, the identity doesn’t impose a single meaning. Instead, it invites interpretation. Depending on who’s looking, it can read as a garment, a symbol, or a fragment of ornament. That openness was key: a signature that travels, resonates, and evolves, without ever needing to spell itself out.
Built to never settle, the monogram refuses a fixed meaning. It shifts depending on where it lands. Sometimes it reads like a symbol, sometimes like ornament, sometimes like something barely finished. That instability is the point, not a flaw.
Lou Menais treats it as raw material, stretching it, looping it, breaking it apart and stitching it back differently each time. A signature that doesn’t behave, that travels and mutates, embedding itself into the garments instead of sitting on top. It keeps rewriting itself, without ever needing to explain what it is.
On one side, Paris-based designer Lou Menais. On the other, Schott NYC, a name stitched into the backbone of American outerwear. In between, the precision and craft of Atelier Montex, part of the Chanel Métiers d’Art since 2011. Together, they drop six jackets that don’t just nod to couture, they bend it.
The brand’s iconic jackets are reworked by hand, opened up, restructured, reassembled. Schott’s DNA collides with French artisanal excellence, blurring the line between heritage and couture. Two worlds crossing paths, stretching the silhouette into new territory.
Schott NYC × Lou Menais isn’t a clean handshake, it’s friction, back-and-forth, something built in the tension. Legacy meets instinct. Structure meets impulse. Add Montex’s obsessive craftsmanship into the mix, and you get a collaboration that’s less about playing it safe, more about pushing until something clicks.
The project extends beyond the garments through a film featuring Lou Menais’ inner circle. Friends, presence, real energy. Not staged, not distant, just an extension of the collaboration, lived from within.
