Azzedine Alaïa

Tunisian fashion designer (1935 2017)

Azzedine Alaïa (azedin alaja; عز الدين عليّة, ; 26 February 1935 – 18 November 2017) was a Tunisian couturier and shoe designer, particularly successful beginning in the 1980s.

Alaïa was born in Tunis, French Tunisia, on 26 February 1935. His parents were wheat farmers, but his glamorous twin sister, Hafida, inspired his love for couture.

After his graduation, Alaïa began working as a dressmaker's assistant. He soon began dressing private clients, and in 1957 he moved to Paris to work in fashion design. In Paris, he started to work at Christian Dior as a tailleur, He took apart old garments designed by Madeleine Vionnet and Cristóbal Balenciaga to study how they were made up, and then, he put them back together. All would influence each other and would often be mentioned in the same breath during the 1980s. He produced his first ready to wear collection in 1980 and moved to larger premises on rue du Parc Royal in the Marais district. His career skyrocketed when two of the most powerful fashion editors of the time, Melka Tréanton of Dépèche Mode and Nicole Crassat of French Elle, supported him in their editorials following that collection, gloves being a particular love of the designer. Later in 1980, while interior designer Andrée Putman was walking down Madison Avenue with one of the first Alaïa leather coats, she was stopped by a Bergdorf Goodman buyer who asked her what she was wearing, which began a turn of events that lead to his designs being sold in New York City and in Beverly Hills. it was considered so momentous that The New York Times later listed it as among the landmark events that altered the cultural landscape of the city. Three years later, 10,000 fans vied for 1,500 tickets to his first US showing in the city at the recently opened Palladium, for whom Alaïa had provided the wait staff's uniforms. Bucking a trend of the time and very unlike his close friend Thierry Mugler, Alaïa normally eschewed huge arenas, circus tents, and spectacles for his presentations, keeping instead to traditional, sedate salon showings of strictly limited attendance and a handful of garments, which he showed on his own schedule, not conforming to the "fashion week" blitzkrieg of shows other designers put on twice a year. If he was tired out from a particularly successful season of high sales and consequent heavy workload, he might not show at all the following season. Alaïa's designs were known for their very tight fit, deft tailoring, curve accenting seaming, leather work, and inventive use of knits. The colors he favored tended to the somber, mostly neutrals and earthtones, his masterful cut and blatant body promotion carrying the impact. In his early years on his own, he favored the broad shoulders that were part of the revival of 1940s styles begun on an industry wide scale in 1978 and famously exaggerated by his friends Thierry Mugler and Claude Montana. His body emphasis outdid that of his colleagues, though, becoming his signature. Though he mostly relied on fit, cut, and seaming to reveal the body, by the early nineties he was incorporating corselets and bust wiring. He was very influential during the 1980s, with many designers copying his voluptuous silhouette, particularly his brilliantly executed undulating peplums of 1985, an almost direct lift from styles shown in 1935 by Alix, who had in turn been interpreting traditional Balinese ceremonial dress. Another of his mid 1980s contributions, the bandage dress, was adopted in the 1990s with great success by designer Hervé Léger as that designer's own signature style. Alaïa was voted Best Designer of the Year and Best Collection of the Year at the Oscars de la Mode by the French Ministry of Culture in 1984 Devotees included both fashion inclined celebrities and fashionistas: Grace Jones (wearing several of his creations in A View to a Kill), Tina Turner, Janet Jackson, Brigitte Nielsen, Naomi Campbell, he did not escape criticism. He was part of a cohort of designers who began in 1978 to revive the revealing, man focused styles of the 1940s and 1950s, after a period during the late 1960s and '70s when women's clothes had become less constricting, less focused on flirtatious coquetry, more natural, comfortable, and practical. Some saw the tight skirts, molded busts, cinched waists, and ultra high heels of Mugler, Montana, Alaïa, and a number of others as regressive, a mockery of women's recently won liberation from male dictates. Others saw Alaïa's clothes in particular as wearable only by those with perfect bodies, and even then not necessarily the most flattering. Alaïa and his supporters of course differed, the designer himself stating that even full figured women looked good in his clothes and others noting that fitted clothes had renewed appeal after a decade when loose, flowing clothes had been the norm. During the mid 1990s, following the death of his sister, Alaïa virtually vanished from the fashion scene; however, he continued to cater to a private clientele and enjoyed commercial success with his ready to wear lines. He then signed a partnership with the Prada group in 2000. Working with Prada saw him through a second impressive renaissance, and in July 2007, he successfully bought back his house and brand name from the Prada group, though his footwear and leather goods division continues to be developed and produced by the group. The two shared a close friendship with Vogue Italia director Franca Sozzani. Also a way of conceiving beauty and aesthetics: the favorite color of the two was black, they also had Naomi Campbell and Tatjana Patitz as their favorite models, and they both wanted a free woman. About this Alaïa said: <blockquote>"I have always wanted women to be free. I hope my dresses give them that lightness. The greatest compliment is when they look at themselves and say to me: 'I feel free". British Vogue editor, Edward Enninful, stated that "Azzedine Alaïa was a true visionary, and a remarkable man. He will be deeply missed by all of those who knew and loved him, as well as by the women around the world who wore his clothes."