This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/fashion/azzedine-alaia-obituary.html
The article has changed 7 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
Version 2 | Version 3 |
---|---|
Azzedine Alaïa, Fashion’s Most Independent Designer, Is Dead at 82 | Azzedine Alaïa, Fashion’s Most Independent Designer, Is Dead at 82 |
(about 1 hour later) | |
Azzedine Alaïa, one of the greatest and most uncompromising designers of the 20th and 21st centuries, died Saturday morning in Paris. He was 82. The cause was a heart attack. His company confirmed the news. | |
Known as a sculptor of the female form, and worn by women from Michelle Obama to Lady Gaga, Mr. Alaïa was equally famous for his rejection of the fashion system, and his belief that it had corrupted the creative power of what could be an art form. He rarely hewed to the official show calendar, preferring to reveal his work when he deemed it ready, as opposed to when retailers or press demanded it. | |
Instead he built his own system, and family of collaborators and supporters, and since the turn of the millennium he had become an increasingly important voice for the value of striving to perfect and explore a single proprietary aesthetic, and against giving in to the relentless pressure to produce collections. | |
“I dressed women directly on their body, by intuition. This is how I gained experience,” he once said. | |
His kitchen, where he was famous for holding free-flowing lunch and dinner gatherings, for which he often cooked, was his soapbox, and he would regale guests — who could range from designers come to pay homage to Kardashians, the artist Julian Schnabel, the architect Peter Marino the film director Pedro Almodóvar, and seamstresses from his ateliers — long into the night with opinion, stories and exhortations. | |
He “changed my conception of fashion,” said Nicolas Ghesquière, the artistic director of Louis Vuitton, in a documentary on Mr. Alaïa made by the stylist Joe McKenna released earlier this year. “I thought fashion was about embellishment as a kid, and when I saw Azzedine’s work I understood fashion was about construction and architecture too. To have an amazing idea and the capacity to realize it yourself is the definitive act of a designer.” | |
Diminutive in stature — at least compared to the supermodels such as Naomi Campbell, who called him “Papa” as he was a guardian of sorts for her in Paris at the beginning of her career, and Farida Khelfa — he was always attired in a uniform of black Chinese cotton pajamas, and was famous for working alone long into the night, bent over patterns and pieces of fabric, with National Geographic programs playing on the wide screen TV nearby next to a pillar collaged with photos of friends and their families. Mr. Alaïa was also mischievous (he often lied about his age, once told a journalist his mother was a Swedish model, and like to hide from his atelier staff members and then startle them by jumping out with a whistle), fond of animals (he had three dogs — including a Saint Bernard — and eight cats), prone to grudges and extraordinarily generous. | |
He dedicated his life to the belief that fashion was more than just garments, but rather an element in the empowerment of women and the broader cultural conversation. | |
An exhibit of his work at the Villa Borghese in Rome in 2015, where his gowns held their own among the Caravaggios and Berninis, proved he had achieved that goal. | |
Born along with a twin sister in Tunisia in 1935 to wheat-farming parents, Mr. Alaïa, who also had a brother, came to Paris in 1957 to work with Christian Dior, living in the “chambre de bonne” of Comtesse Nicole de Blégiers, and paying his rent by making clothes for her and babysitting her children. Word spread, and he became an inside secret of the great and good of French society; clients included the writer Louise de Vilmorin, Cécile and Marie-Hélène de Rothschild, and the actress Arletty. Along the way he designed clothes for the showgirls at the Crazy Horse. He opened his own maison in 1979. | |
He introduced his first ready-to-wear collection in 1980, and was heralded as “the king of cling” — though in fact his garments were much more than that: He used leather and knits to shape and support the body, transforming it into the best version of itself. He eschewed external decoration for internal integrity, weaving pattern and adornment into the weft of the garment itself in ways that were almost undetectable to the outside eye. | |
Celebratory of feminine physicality without falling into the trap of exploiting it, his work coincided with and helped create the supermodel phenomenon. His shows, rarely publicized, without any of the bells and whistles that now are now de rigueur, were nevertheless among the most influential and jam-packed. | |
He didn’t care, and people were often kept waiting for hours until he was ready. | |
“He’s an artist at the end of the day and he doesn’t have any sense of time,” said Ms. Campbell in Mr. McKenna’s film. “I remember Stephanie Seymour’s wedding, at the reception after the church wedding, and he was still stitching our bridesmaids dresses. He cannot let it be seen until it is completely finished.” | |
Though his aesthetic fell out of fashion with the advent of deconstructed minimalism in the 1990s, Mr. Alaïa never allowed himself to be distracted by the pressures of others, and by the year 2000, acolytes began returning to his atelier on Rue de Moussy in the Fourth Arrondissement, the complex of buildings where he lived, worked and cooked (and later opened a three-apartment hotel). They were drawn by both his work and what he stood for: independent thought in an industry ruled by trend. | |
Indeed, one of the hallmarks of Mr. Alaïa’s clothes was their timelessness; they could be worn for decades, because they were not rooted in any identifiable season. As Artforum wrote in a review of a retrospective at the Palais Galliera and Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2013: “The 40 decades of Alaïa’s work shown here reveals no defining trends, only an increasing interest in the refinement of technique, a kind of reverse neoclassicist ethos that lends soft flesh and airy fabric the smooth, uncanny weightiness of sculpture.” | |
Prada bought a stake in the business, allowing it to become a force in accessories. In 2002 a number of Yves Saint Laurent’s former couture staff joined Alaïa after Mr. Saint Laurent’s retirement, including the heads of the tailoring and dressmaking ateliers. | |
In 2007, Compagnie Financière Richemont, the Swiss luxury group that also owns Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels, acquired a majority share, confirming Alaïa’s position as a jewel of the fashion world. Their backing allowed Alaïa to expand at its own pace: A perfume was introduced, store expansion planned and by last year Mr. Alaïa’s goods were being sold at more than 300 stores. | |
Nevertheless, at a time when designers are more often called “chief creative officers,” and have teams of people to interpret and realize their ideas, Mr. Alaïa continued to oversee every garment, and every detail, himself, often without stopping for weekends or vacations. | |
“He did everything with his hands,” said the stylist Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele in the documentary. Though he had a house in Tunisia on the sea, he rarely managed to visit, because he was always working. | |
Beyond the runway, he created work for the ballet and the opera, began holding art exhibitions in 2004 in the space that also houses his showroom (regular programming began in 2015 with an exhibition by the Syrian poet Adonis), and was planning a bookstore. | |
Mr. Alaïa returned to the couture calendar in July after six years, and in the audience were Jack Lang, the former minister of culture in France; Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, former first lady of France (and one-time Alaïa model); Isabelle Huppert, the actor; Marc Newson, the industrial designer; and Fabrice Hergott, the director of the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. He had become the equivalent of a national treasure, and everyone was there to honor him. | |
He is survived by his nieces and nephews; his partner, the painter Christoph von Weyhe; his closest collaborator, Carla Sozzani, and all those who worked with him. | |